The first draft of anything is shit...

By the end of September...

2011-09-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

So I don't know what happened, but for some reason August got super productive. Which is crazy considering I graduated from college in August. You'd think I would have been a little too busy. So go me. Now in September (seriously in about a week) I'm moving down to Santa Barbara so again you'd think I'd be to busy to do too much reading, but I'm going to go ahead and make an attempt anyway.

To be Read by the End of September

~~Dragonwyck - Anya Seton~~

The Revolt of the Eaglets - Jean Plaidy

Le Mort d'Arthur - Thomas Malory

Enduring Love - Ian McEwan

Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

To be read...

2011-09-01T09:52:00.000-07:00

A Good Hard Look - Ann Napolitano
A Good School - Richard Yates
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead - Barbara Comyns
The Book of Lies - Mary Horlock
Bury the Chains - Adam Hockschild
France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart/The Tragic Tale of Claire Ferchaud - Raymond Jonas (2 books)
Pure - Andrew Miller
Roma - Steven Saylor
The Culture of Property - Jordana Bailkin
Becoming Marie Antoinette - Juliet Grey
The Day the Leader was Killed - Naguib Mahfouz
Rules of Civility - Amor Towles
History of a Pleasure Seeker - Richard Mason
The Last TIme I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene
The Alcoholic Tradition - William Rorobaugh
The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
Gillespie and I - Jane Harris
The Lantern - Deborah Lawrenson
Next to Love - Ellen Feldmen
All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

21 new books...

Bombay Time - Thrity Umrigar

2011-08-31T14:46:00.000-07:00

bombay time
thrity umrigar
c. 2001
271 pages
completed 8/14/2011

read for: south asian challenge and TBR challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Bombay is awake.

Mehernosh Kanga, son of prominent Parsi lawyer Jimmy Kanga, is getting married today. Mehernosh has recently graduated from Oxford with his own law degree, but instead of choosing to practice in England or being lured away by the glamour of America, he has chosen to return to the city of his birth and join his father's firm in Bombay. The wedding of Mehernosh acts as an excuse for the residents of Wadia Baug, Jimmy and Zarin Kanga's own home, to gather and reflect on their lives together: the disintegrating marriage of Rusi and Coombi, the tragic love stories of Soli and Tehmi, the joy the group finds in their friendships with one another, and their ever changing relationship with the city of Bombay.

This was a surprisingly quick read about the lives of a particular Parsi community living in Bombay. The Parsis are an ethnic minority in India, a people descended from Persian immigrants who fled Muslim persecution during the 10th century. Much of their culture and how it differs from ethnic Indians, specifically their Zoroastrian religion, adds to their stories, their relationships with each other, and even more their relationship with Bombay. That being said, Parsi culture and religion was well integrated into the story without becoming overwhelmingly expository.

While certain characters are mentioned and seen throughout the entire book, each chapter is seen through the eyes of someone different. Each character gets their own story told, their triumphs and losses, how they became the men and women they are today. This is both good and bad; it's good in that each character has their own unique story to tell and it's good to see how the others fit into their story, but also bad because, for example, I really didn't like Coombi and didn't want to hear her story. Thankfully she was the only character I really didn't like. I had some issues with Tehmi, too, but that was a little different. While I liked the character of Tehmi, I didn't like how her story turned out. Every other character seemed so deeply rooted in reality that her breath problem after the death of Cyrus seemed out of place. It was too bizarre.

There wasn't too much overt description of the city of Bombay, no paragraphs of imagery describing streets and buildings, and yet Bombay itself became almost a character in its own right. Bombay changed with the times just as Rusi or Soli or Dosamai did, and its specific role in history had just as strong an effect on certain people as their neighbors. These stories might have turned out quite differently had they not occurred in Bombay.

4/5

Music Mix Friday...ABBA "Waterloo"

2011-08-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today I took my last final for my last class of my last quarter of college (yea for me!) That class was on the French Revolution and Napoleonic years. I don't really know any songs about the French Revolution, so Napoleon it is! I figured this song was appropriate (or insensitive, depending on your love for Napoleon...).

Does anyone else feel the ABBA women seem awkwardly stiff? The dudes are totally getting into it in comparison. Also, I don't think ABBA quite understood what happened to Napoleon at Waterloo...

I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

2011-08-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

i will repay

baroness emmuska orczy

c. 1906

307 pages

completed 8/9/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge, TBR challenge, and scarlet pimpernel series

*may contain spoilers*

"Coward! Coward! Coward!"

In 1793, during the height of the French Revolution, Juliet Marney finds herself rescued from the Parisian sans-culottes by Paul Déroulède, a prominent figure in the National Convention. Déroulède is a passionate public speaker and is beloved by the people of Paris as a favorite of the recently martyred Marat and a staunch republican, someone who understands and speaks for the sans-culottes. Juliet and Déroulède continue to live together after her rescue, but soon realize that neither is exactly what they seem and could either be each other's salvation or damnation.

So, this is a Scarlet Pimpernel novel, but did you notice my complete lack of mention of the Pimpernel? Yeah, that was pointed. The Pimpernel is hardly in it at all. Yes, there is a daring rescue attempt by the end, and yes, you do eventually realize (or guess way in advance) that another minor though pivotal character from earlier in the novel was Sir Percy in disguise, but really this is not his story the way The Scarlet Pimpernel or Sir Percy Leads the Band are. This is very definitely the story of Juliet and Déroulède. I can see that some readers would be irritated by that, but I didn't mind it. I was definitively wrapped up in the story of Juliet and Déroulède, not to mention I just love reading about the French Revolution. But for others, the lack of Pimpernel could be a strong deterrent.

Orczy has an interesting voice as an author. I'm not sure how much of that comes from the time period she was writing in (1900s) or the subject matter, but she writes in an impassioned voice that's unusual in more modern works. It almost felt like she had written a speech (a really, really long speech) rather than a novel. In fact, I actually found that silently reading did a disservice to the prose and ended up reading most of it out loud. I realize that's ~~super~~ a little weird, and thankfully no one else was in the house, but it just seemed to sound better out loud. There are a lot of exclamation marks and bemoaning the fate of France at the hands of the sans-culottes.

I did have some issues with this particular edition (of course, I've since returned it to the library and so can't tell you which edition). There seemed to be quite a few typos. I mean, not on every page of anything, but enough so that I felt it to be distracting (especially while being a dork and reading out loud).

I just finished my very last college course (the final was literally this morning) which was on the French Revolution and it honestly made it so much more enjoyable to read this. It was like a supplement to the course, being able to read the story but pick out the events and figures that we'd been studying in class. I find it best to read historical fiction like this when I really feel like I know the basics of the period.

4/5

Music Mix Friday...Guster "Do You Love Me?"

2011-08-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

I think I quite like their long-john jammies.

The White Queen - Philippa Gregory

2011-08-11T20:49:00.000-07:00

the white queen
philippa gregory
c. 2009
445 pages
completed 8/3/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge and read from my shelves challenge

*may contain spoilers*

In the darkness of the forest the young knight could hear the splashing of the fountain long before he could see the glimmer of moonlight reflected on the still surface.

When she walked with two sons to the crossroads to wait for the king, Elizabeth Woodville, a widow at age 27, only planned to ask for her dead husband's lands back. She didn't intend to fall in love and become Queen of England. Despite the rise in prominence and power her new position brings to her family, it also brings political struggles and death. Elizabeth makes instant enemies in those who don't like her influence over the king. Not to mention, the country is far from stable as cousins fight each other, each with a claim to the throne.

I've read all of Gregory's Tudor novels, but this is the first of her new series about the Cousin's War (more widely known as the War of the Roses). I think the third in the series comes out later this year and with (maybe?) a fourth one still to come. For anyone who keeps up with me and is familiar with this series, you can probably guess that it makes me crazy that the series' are not written in chronological order. So I try to look at them as stand-alone novels, and for the most part they can be. This book ends with a slight cliffhanger that hopefully gets picked up in a later novel, but otherwise they can be fairly solitary.

The last two Philippa Gregory books I read were split into three narratives, but this one reverts back to having only one. To be honest, I think this books could have benefited from having other narrators along with Elizabeth. Possibly someone like Elizabeth's brother Anthony or something like that (though I realize Anthony would prove to be a problem as a narrator 100 pages or so before the end of the novel)? My reason for this is that there's a lot of time when Elizabeth's not really doing anything, but there's so much going on politically and militarily. As a reader, I felt those episodes would have benefited from a more first hand account. There was just so much action that Elizabeth wasn't privy to that I felt her lone narration did a bit of disservice to the whole story. It could get a little boring with Elizabeth stuck in sanctuary just hearing about the battles. Not to mention, I honestly found the character of Elizabeth a little...I'm not sure, but I wasn't wild about her. She was a little too ambitious at the risk of her family, a little too calculating. Sadly much of her calculations didn't pan out the way she wanted.

One thing I was genuinely happy about was the relationship between Elizabeth and Edward. So often queens in these stories are so very unhappily married, and it's that unhappiness that adds weight and strength to part of their character. So many royal marriages are just horrible and so depressing to read about, which made the genuine love and devotion shown between Edward and Elizabeth incredibly refreshing. In fact, seeing as Elizabeth herself was not what was really drawing me into the story, upon the death of Edward and therefore their relationship I lost a lot of momentum in reading (the first 300 pages were read in three or four days and then the last 100 pages took me a few weeks). Their relationship was definitely uncommon. Politically, it made much more sense for Edward to marry a European princess, someone who could solidify his position as king. And with another royal family behind his children, I feel the little princes would have had a much stronger chance of surviving his death. Of course this is nothing but speculation...

Speaking of relationships, while I wasn't always wild about Elizabeth herself, I did greatly enjoy her family. Again, sometimes in historical fiction specifically about royalty, families don't act the way normal families do (being as they're not normal families). And that's definitely seen in the tenuous relationships between Edward and his brothers George and Richard. But Elizabeth and her family actually loved and supported each other. I loved her mother and I especially loved her brother Anthony. And I was glad we didn't spend too much time with her children other than her daughter (also named Elizabeth). I think it would have been too horrible to get attached to her sons.

I do have to point out that I could have done without the supernatural elements. I understand the reasons for adding them, that Elizabeth's mother was arrested (though acquitted) for witchcraft and that the women of the family claimed to be descendants of Melusina the water goddess, but I found they detracted from the book. I think I could have gotten behind Jaquetta and Elizabeth practicing witchcraft a little more if the results were more ambivalent, but I didn't like the blatant use of magic.

I think this was definitely a good start to a new series. Gregory does a good job of taking historical questions (such as the mystery of the princes in the tower) and creating very plausible answers for them. Of course we don't know what really happened, but the way the answers are presented make for a good argument or at least an interesting possibility. I'm looking forward to continuing the series with The Red Queen.

4/5

Theft: a Love Story - Peter Carey

2011-08-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

theft: a love story

peter carey

c. 2006

269 pages (102 pages read)

stopped reading 6/28/2011

read for: i want more challenge

*may contain spoilers*

I don't know if my story is grand enough to be a tragedy, although a lot of shitty stuff did happen.

Michael Boone, known affectionately as Butcher Bones by his brother Hugh, used to be a famous artist in Sydney, Australia. Now, however, after losing his wife and his son and much of his work in a nasty divorce, he's not much more than a broke, drunk has-been. Forced to leave Sydney, Boone and his brother take up residence as caretakers for an old patron's country property. Their lives are quiet until they meet Marlene, a women who lets them know their neighbor is the owner of a priceless painting, a missing Liebovitz. Just days later, the painting goes missing and, being one of the only people to know of its existence and whereabouts, Boone is accused.

And...that's as far as I got. So if this book goes on to be about something else, I'm sorry for misinforming you.

There's nothing overtly wrong with this book. I'm not throwing it down in disgust or anything. In fact, a part of me that vividly remembers how much I loved Oscar and Lucinda thinks maybe I put it down too soon. I haven't managed to take it back to the library yet, even though I stopped reading over a month ago and am even currently sitting in the UW Suzzello Library Cafe. I just got confused. There's some stuff that I don't understand and after 100 pages I'm not invested enough to see if continuing on will clear anything up. So I put it down. But I'm still not sure...we'll see...

1/5 unless I pick it up again.

To be read...

2011-08-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Break the Skin - Lee Martin
The Leavenworth Case - Anna Katherine Green
A Matter of Class - Mary Balogh
Ellis Island - Kate Kerrigan
The Little Stranger - Sarah Stranger
The Heretic's Wife - Brenda Rickman Vantrease
The Killings at Badger's Drift - Caroline Graham (1st in a series)

6 new books and 1 new series. Can you tell I engaged in next to no blogger activity this month?

By the end of August...

2011-08-01T20:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, yes, as you may have noticed from the fact that I've not posted since July 3, July turned into the month where I didn't read a single book. I've got maybe 30 pages left of The White Queen which I've been reading since the last day of June, and I've started The Liar's Club, I Will Repay, and Bombay Time, but haven't really gotten more than about 25 pages into any of them. I actually don't like to read more than one book at a time (unless I've got school books or a REALLY big book that I can only read in small increments) which I think is why I haven't really gotten into those three. I'm dragging my feet horribly on The White Queen and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure why. I read the first 300 pages in incredibly good time (for me) but then something happened and I can't really bring myself to read more than a few pages at a time. It's possible that my enjoyment changed after a certain character died (is it really a spoiler if it's history?), but I'm not sure. Anyway. Hopefully I can force myself to finish it tomorrow and move on.

To be Read by the End of August

~~The White Queen - Philippa Gregory~~

~~I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy~~

~~Bombay Time - Thrity Umrigar~~

Dragonwyck - Anya Seton
~~Amsterdam - Ian McEwan~~

I was asked after I posted my last monthly goal if I ever finish these monthly lists, and the answer is almost always no. But I think that's okay. I may not always (or ever) complete things, but at least I have goals. :)

Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe

2011-07-03T20:30:00.000-07:00

doctor faustus
christopher marlowe
premiered 1592
69 pages
completed 5/29/2011

read for: HSTEU305 (european witch trials)

*may contain spoilers*

Not marching now in fields of Trasimene / Where Mars did mate the Carthaginians, / Nor sporting in the dalliance of love / in courts of kings where state is overturned / Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds / Intends our muse to vaunt his heavenly verse.

A fifteenth century German, Georg Faustus, was a learned man with a reputation for magic. He studied at Heilderberg where he showed an interest in occult topics and was an example of the Renaissance magic tradition, a renewed interest in sorcery and other such learned magics. He was an actual figure around whom myths and legends have sense sprung up. Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus is just one of many versions of this tale. In his play, Doctor Faustus is a learned man with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and power. He sees magic as the ultimate form of both and so makes a pact with the devil, his soul in exchange for twenty-four years of magical power. As the time for payment draws near, Faustus grows fearful and contemplates whether his damnation is inevitable or if its not too late to repent.

I read this for school, for my History of European Witch Trials class (which I kept accidentally referring to as simply my "witchcraft" class, as if I'd ditched the University of Washington for Hogwarts) and wrote a paper on it, so I was reading it for a very specific purpose. Rather than for enjoyment in the story, I was reading it as a text on Reformation belief in diabolism (demon worship) and the rejection of Catholic tradition. And in those instances, there is a wealth of information (enough to write an 8 page paper) from the deeper theological questions (if this is a Reformation text, is Faustus automatically damned for his diabolism or is there room for repentance?) to the more comically superficial (such as Faustus demanding Mephistophiles, his demon friend, appear to him as a Franciscan friar). Which is probably good, seeing as how otherwise, it's really kind of boring. Faustus is kind of a jackass. He didn't have enough depth to him to make me care why he chose to consort with devils. Not a whole lot happens, either. I wish when he got his powers he actually used them for something. Instead he did a few tricks and at one point traveled to Rome to screw with the Pope. But there was nowhere near twenty-four years worth of magical happenings. Not even twenty-four years of mischief.

I do think a good portion of my boredom comes from reading the text as opposed to seeing it performed. It's one thing to actually see devils carry him off to his fate at the end of the play, leaving the viewer without a concrete resolution (sometimes it just goes dark, sometimes screams are heard, and sometimes bloody limbs are thrown back on stage as if the demons tore his soul right out of his body), but reading nothing but sparse stage directions leaves a reader a little cold.

There's a faction of people who believe that Christopher Marlowe was the actual author of all Shakespeare's plays, and after reading this I have to believe those people are crazy (no offense if you're on of those crazies). There's a reason why Shakespeare is taught over and over, with whole classes devoted to nothing but his work, and why Christopher Marlowe is relegated to a week in my History of Witch Trials class.

3/5

Music Mix Friday...Florence + the Machine "Kiss with a Fist"

2011-07-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

By the end of July...

2011-07-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I only made it through one of the books from last month, but that's okay. It's only one extra for this month. We'll see what happens.

To be Read by the End of July

The White Queen - Philippa Gregory

The Liar's Club - Mary Karr

Bombay Time- Thrity Umrigar

The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

Small Wars - Sadie Jones

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

To be read...

2011-07-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale
The Pun Also Rises - John Pollock
Outlaw - Angus Donald
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Rasom Riggs
The Lover's Dictionary - David Leviathan
Tigerlily's Orchids - Ruth Rendell
Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood
The Uncoupling - Meg Wolitzer
A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion - Ron Hansen
The Resevoir - John Milliken Thompson
Bossypants - Tina Fey
Game of Patience - Susanne Alleyn
Trespass - Rose Tremain
A Mountain of Crumbs - Elena Gorokhova
Herland - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Three Miss Kings - Ada Cambridge
The Invisible Bridge - Julie Orringer
The American Heiress - Daisy Goodwin
Finding Emilie - Laurel Corona
Vaclav and Lena - Haley Tanner
Please Look After Mom - Kyung-Sook Shin
Swamplandia - Karen Russell
Lady of the English - Elizabeth Chadwick
The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson
Everything Beautiful Began After - Simon Von Booy
Sepulchre - Kate Mosse
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
When God Was a Rabbit - Sarah Winman
The Match - Romesh Gunesekera
Butterfield 8 - John O'Hara
The Dark Mirror - Juliet Marillier
The Lake - Banana Yoshimoto
Flappers and Philosophers - F Scott Fitzgerald
Airmail - Naomi Bulger
Case Histories - Kate Atkinson
The Valley of Heaven and Hell - Susie Kelly
Ghost Light - Joseph O'Connor
Adverbs - Daniel Handler
Crome Yellow - Aldous Huxley
The Novel in the Viola - Natasha Solomons
Incognito - Gregory Murphey
Queen Pokou - Veronique Tadjo
In Lucia's Eyes - Arthur Japin
The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford
The Rest is Silence - Carla Gulfenbein
The Assault - Harry Mulisch
The Tea Lords - Hella S Haasse
The Slaves of Solitude - Patrick Hamilton
The Collaborator - Margaret Leroy
The Story of Beautiful Girl - Rachel Simon
Leonard's Swans - Karen Essex
Virgin Widow - Anne O'Brien
The Forest Lover - Susan Vreeland
The Goose Girl - Shannon Hale
Bloody Foreigners - Robert Windor
Miss Buncle Married - DE Stevenson (2nd in a series)
The Winter Queen - Boris Akunin (1st in a series)
The Manservant Mysteries - Lee Herman (series)
Children and Fire - Ursula Hegi (series)

55 new books and 4 new series. Every time this list grows longer, it's almost a little sad.

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2011-06-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Theft: a Love Story
Sydney, Australia 1980

Brother Cadfael's Penance - Ellis Peters

2011-06-27T15:32:00.000-07:00

brother cadfael's penance

ellis peters

c. 1994

292 pages

completed 5/23/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The Earl of Leicester's courier came riding over the bridge that spanned the Severn, and into the town of Shrewsbury, somewhat past noon on a day at the beginning of November, with three months' news in his saddle-roll.

The last adventure of the series sees Brother Cadfael embark on a personal mission. King Stephen and Empress Maud show no signs of ending their civil war and after the loss of a battle, many of the Empress' men are imprisoned in the castles of the King's men, most available for ransom, but some not. Cadfael discovers one of those men to be Olivier de Bretagne, the son he had only recently learned of. Cadfael travels with Hugh to a peace conference between the two factions in the hopes of discovering his son's whereabouts. While there, a murder takes place and an old friend of Cadfael's is accused, Yves Hugonin, now the brother-in-law of Olivier. Yves is taken prisoner by the same man whispered to be holding Olivier. Now Cadfael has two men to rescue, but his leave from his duties does not extend past the conference. Cadfael must choose between the home he loves and a son who has no knowledge of his father.

It's taken me a long time to get around to reviewing this. To be honest, I'm devastated that I read the last book. There's no more Cadfael. I've read all the books and seen all the Mystery! episodes (you should really rebroadcast those, Masterpiece Mystery). When I read the last page I seriously considered starting the first book over again. But no...I am finished. It's time to find a new mystery series (preferably one starring a Benedictine monk with his best friend the Sheriff of Shropshire).

This installment is a little odd in that the murder mystery plays a serious second banana to the story of Cadfael rescuing Olivier. This was somewhat similar to Summer of the Danes except in this case I was super enthralled with by Cadfael's rescue mission so I didn't really mind/notice the lack of mystery.

The best part of the book, for me, was the odd friendship that developed between Cadfael and Phillip Fitz Robert, Olivier and Yves' captor. I think it's a testament to Peters' skill as an author that while Phillip could have easily been nothing but a monster, instead his relationships with Cadfael, Olivier, and even his father show him to be so much more. He turns out to be an extremely complicated and intelligent man, and one who was quite likable. Yes, his treatment of Olivier was unfair, but when it's understood it almost comes across as reasonable. His motives behind his more treasonous actions excellently add to his complexity. He is not a traitor for personal gain but for peace - anything to end the bloodshed. His grey thinking can't be understood by the black and white Olivier, making their relationship especially tense, but is understood by Cadfael. I was glad when he let Olivier go and then Olivier returned the favor by rescuing him from Empress Maud.

I was especially moved by one particular moment in the book. Empress Maud had attacked Fitz Robert's castle and when all was definitely lost and himself severely wounded, Fitz Robert allowed Cadfael to let Olivier out. The two then devised a plan to escape with Fitz Robert. It is during this meeting that Cadfael and Olivier come together both in full knowledge of their father/son relationship for the first time, and Olivier has to ask him for help into his armour and says "If I am going, as well go quickly. This once, my father, will you be my squire and help me to arm?" and I don't know. I was moved.

Lastly, I felt the ending was the perfect way to close out the series. To be honest, I wish there could have been one last scene between Cadfael and Hugh, but I don't think it could have been worked in. It would have been disrespectful and out of character to visit him before the Abbot, and it would have been anti-climactic after Abbot Radulfus' simple and beautiful "Get up now, and come with your brothers into the choir." So I'll take it as it is and just know in my heart that Cadfael and Hugh had many more adventures together.

If you haven't read these books, you need to immediately.

5/5

Maurice - EM Forster

2011-06-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

maurice
em forster
c. 1913
246 pages
completed 6/20/2011

*may contain spoilers*

Once a term the whole school went for a walk - that is to say the three masters took part as well as all the boys.

Maurice tells the story of Maurice Hall, a middle class boy growing up in Edwardian England. At Cambridge he befriends Clive Durham, and as the two become intimate their friendship quickly blossoms into love. Though the two remain almost inseparable during the first few years after they leave university, a trip to Greece causes a change of heart in Clive. He comes home "fixed" and marries a woman names Anne, breaking Maurice's heart. Due to his devastation at losing Clive, Maurice too becomes determined to cure himself of the "disease" of homosexuality.

I think I kind of read this at a bit of the wrong time. I watched the movie due to a recent actor obsession (damn you BBC Sherlock and your silver fox Lestrade - who can be seen in the sidebar as my current tv boyfriend) and completely fell in love. I thought the movie was excellent and kept watching bits of it over and over on youtube (especially Maurice and Alec's last scene at the boathouse). Then I discovered my sister owned the book so I had to read it immediately, and so since I'm currently so enamored of the movie and Alec Scudder especially, I don't know how objective I can be about the book.

This book was written in 1913 but due to its subject matter (where the main character is not only a homosexual who is portrayed mostly positively, but one who *SPOILER* gets a happy ending with the man he loves) wasn't published until the 70s, after Forster's death. So it's less known than some of his other works. I found it interesting that though homosexuality is obviously the crux of the novel, it is the class distinction and tension between Maurice and Alec, something always featured so prominently in Forster's work (I say this like I've actually read anything else of his - well, I've seen the movies!), that is really the more pervading issue. Alec is only the under gamekeeper of Penge and Maurice is a guest there. As such, Alec isn't even noticed by Maurice (or even the reader really) for quite sometime. The use of a homosexual relationship, bringing two men of very different backgrounds together, is an interesting way to showcase the beginning disintegration of the European class system during this time. I love when books are obviously about one thing but are really, sneakily about something else, too.

It took longer for me to read this than I think I would have had I not seen the movie. It's Maurice and Alec who are the real love story (or to be fair to Clive's love for Maurice, they are the happy ending) and so I did feel like I had to slog through Clive a bit in order to get to Alec. Not that Clive is not a worthwhile or interesting character. His sudden abandonment of his homosexual leanings is a curious thing. It's a little ambiguous as to whether he really did grow out of it or if he still held those feelings but no longer allowed himself to act on them. The movie gives an actual answer to this question by adding a sad ending to the story of Clive and Maurice's university pal Risley that's not in the original story. While some purist may be super against this addition by the filmmakers, I actually thought it added a lot. It explained Clive's transformation and also made it clear to modern viewers just how dangerous it was for homosexuals at this time in England. Readers in 1913 (even though the book wasn't published then) would be aware of the dangers, whereas people today might not realize it was a jail-able offence (and had at one point in English history been an offence worthy of execution). Anyway, like I said, even though Clive is an intriguing character, I was impatient to get to Alec who is just so wonderful.

I just loved this story, book and movie alike, and I am pretty sure they'll be ones I revisit again and again.

5/5

By the end of June...

2011-06-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Like I said in my last post, the wheels have completely fallen off the wagon. I'm so behind in my plans for the year that I'd have to stop living and just read non stop in order to finish everything I planned. Seeing as I'm starting my last quarter of college, as much fun as it might be I don't see that happening. If anything, after adding a move to Santa Barbara upon graduation to this last quarter of school, I will have even less time devoted to reading (plus let's be for real, I have a sizable amount of tv to watch if I want to be caught up for the Emmys...and I do).

In light of these plans, I have decided to scale back on the amount of challenges I'm signed up for. Normally I would throw up my hands in despair and quit everything, but things have fallen apart so early this year that I think I have the opportunity to re-prioritize instead of just giving up. Because of how behind I am in them compared to some of the others, I've decided to pull out of the Back to the Classics, What's in a Name, Page to Screen, and Global Challenges. This still leaves me with the South Asian, I Want More, Historical Fiction, Reading From My Shelves, and TBR Challenges. So there's still a lot to be read and maybe more to be given up. We'll see how it goes.

As there's still ten days left in June, I still have time to get a little bit done this month. So here's an abbreviated goal.

To be Read by the End of June

The White Queen - Philippa Gregory

Theft: a Love Story - Peter Carey

Think I can finish two books in ten days? Don't be surprised if I fall way short of this teeny tiny goal. Ha. :)

Music Mix Friday...Eddie Murphy "Party All the Time"

2011-06-17T00:25:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted in a while, and even worse than that I kinda quit reading for a while. The usual excuses apply, I suppose. The quarter ended and I don't know what happened, but for the last three weeks I was basically a hermit all cooped up in my bedroom working on all my final papers, exams, and presentations. Thankfully it all paid off except for one class (postwar European history and I are currently taking a break and reevaluating our relationship), but it put a serious wrench in my book plans for the year. So much so that I didn't even bother to put up a list of June books since I know that list will only cause me to sink into a deep depression (or just laugh uncontrollably). Instead, I'm spending the next few days restructuring my reading plans for the second half of the year, taking into account my final quarter of school (graduating in August, whaaaaat?), my September move to sunny Santa Barbara, and my obsession with being caught up on all things television in time for the Emmys. And while doing this restructuring, I think I'll take a little time to get my Party on.

The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove - Susan Gregg Gilmore

2011-05-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

the improper life of bezellia grove
susan gregg gilmore
c. 2010
256 pages
completed 5/9/2011

read for: i want more challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Apparently among those who consider their social standing some measure of importance, I am to be admired for I am one of the view Nashvillians who can claim with infallible certainty that a blood relative had lived in this town since its inception.

Bezellia Grove is the last in a long line of first born daughters named for their pioneering ancestor who picked up her dead husband's musket in order to fight off the attacking Chickamauga tribe (though the accuracy of the story is debatable). Growing up in an affluent and wealthy family, Bezellia's life should be breezy and idyllic. But as her mother descends into alcoholism, her father becomes more and more distant, and her younger sister enters her teens still making mud pies and clinging to her doll Baby Stella, Bezellia's life is anything but. She finds herself drawn to the family she creates from the African American help, Maizelle the family cook and Nathaniel the driver. Her life takes a turn when she develops a friendship with Nathaniel's son Samuel and Bezellia is introduced to 60s Tennessee racism first hand.

While I have to admit I enjoyed Gilmore's first novel Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen better, I still really enjoyed Bezellia. Southern lit like this can sometimes be dismissed as merely fluff, but she tackles some heavy topics like alcoholism and racism and inter-racial relationships in a very realistic and non sugar coated or fantastical way. I found the inclusion on some not-so-nice remarks from Bezellia's cousin, who was all for Bezellia's crush on Samuel, to be more telling of the blatant racism than any of Mrs. Grove's hysteric outburst. Mrs. Grove is portrayed throughout much of the book as a somewhat larger than life villain (before we come to see her as more complex) so it's kind of accepted that of course someone like that would be racist. But Bezellia's cousin is supposed to be a good character, someone on Bezellia and Samuel's side. For her to make those comments shows how deeply rooted the racism was.

I did find some fault (maybe that's the wrong word??) in the characterization of Maizelle and Nathaniel. In my opinion, I viewed them as a little too...perfect? Against the villainy of Mrs. Grove they were almost angelic in their long suffering and unconditional love for Bezellia and her sister. I thought they were a little too influenced by Mamie or Uncle Tom stereotypes (Maizelle a little more than Nathaniel) in their devotion to Bezellia. It wasn't super blatant or anything, just something that I picked up on. Samuel, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter, a well rounded character and equal to Bezellia.

As for the ending, I was somewhat torn. The hopeless romantic in me wished Samuel and Bezellia could have taken on the world, but the historian in me was more satisfied that they didn't.

4/5

Slow Man - JM Coetzee

2011-05-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

slow man

jm coetzee

c. 2005

263 pages (189 pages read)

stopped reading 4/30/2011

read for: tbr challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The blow catches him from the right, sharp and surprising and painful, like a bolt of electricity, lifting him up off the bicycle.

After being hit by a car while out riding a bicycle, Paul must relearn how to live and get around as an amputee, dependent on others. He refuses to entertain the idea of a prosthetic limb, opting instead to remain on crutches. Due to a lack of family, Paul is assigned a nurse to look him, Marijana, a Croation mother of three. Paul forms an attachment to Marijana and her children, but she is a married woman. Paul has to decide what, if anything, he wants to do. Helping him along is Elizabeth, an eccentric author who takes up residence in Paul's flat. Though Paul and Elizabeth have never met before this time, she seems to have more stake in Paul's action than would be expected.

Sadly, I didn't finish this book, so I don't know how Paul and Marijana's story ended. I have no idea if they got together (though I hope they didn't).

For the first third of the book, I was really enjoying it. It was a simple story, an older amputee falling in love with his younger and very married nurse. Their story was good. The developing relationship between Paul and Marijana's children was good. The confrontation between Paul and Marijana's husband was good. I was even amused by the fact that I had a hard time not pronouncing Marijana's name as marijuana. All good.

And then Elizabeth was introduced.

The introduction of Elizabeth completely changed the course of the book. Instead of a simple story of a man and his somewhat inappropriate love for his nurse, the book changed suddenly into a work of meta-fiction. Elizabeth was not only a character of the book, she was the author. She was pulling the strings, prodding Paul to act. Elizabeth interacts with Paul but he's not really a real person, he's one of her characters.

It's entirely possible I could have gotten behind this had the book held this meta theme from the beginning. But once I've gone through 100 pages invested in the relationship between patient and nurse, it's hard to shift focus to such a radically different relationship between author and character. I don't like when there is such a drastic shift in theme and focus.

I very much enjoyed the voice of the author which is why it took me so long to make the decision to abandon the book. I feel I should continue looking into JM Coetzee, but this book just turned out not to be for me.

1/5

One Amazing Thing - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

2011-05-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

one amazing thing

chitra banerjee divakaruni

c. 2009

220 pages

completed 4/13/2011

read for: south asian challenge

*may contain spoilers*

When the first rumble came, no one in the visa office, down in the basement of the Indian consulate, thought anything of it.

Expecting an ordinary day with nothing more than a few inconveniences, several people have gathered at an Indian consulate in American. Each are preoccupied with their own lives and give little notice to each other as they wait to finish getting visas. Their lives quickly come together, however, when they are hit by an earthquake and become trapped in the basement of the consulate. As their situation becomes more and more dire, the companions, with little else to pass the time, tell each other their stories.

It hadn't happened in a while, but I read this book in only two days. Maybe not such a feat for others (as the book is only 220 pages) but I tend to read annoyingly slow. But I found this extremely hard to put down. I've been pretty unmotivated lately, either to read much or blog or even read other people's blogs, but I'm trying to get all three back on track.

I read this about a month ago, so the review may be a little lacking or disjointed, so I'm sorry.

I always find it especially enjoyable when I feel a personal connection to what I'm reading, especially if that personal connection is something somewhat arbitrary. Like when I'm reading a historical fiction novel and they happen to be discussing an aspect of history that I just learned about in one of my classes or something like that. In this book, I noticed pretty early on in their time together, that the group stuck in the consulate were going through the five stages of team building. When I served in AmeriCorps, we ended up having to talk about team building all the time, and we'd do all those ridiculous games and exercises to make sure we had smooth running teams. It's one of those things that is important to do, but everyone kind of hates doing it so you have to kind of make fun of it. I spent two years in AmeriCorps and we talked about team building (or I guess were lectured about team building) all the time. So it was kind of funny for me to read this and make note of when they transitioned into the next stage. For anyone interested the five stages are forming (when you first meet), storming (when everyone is fighting), norming (when the team starts to understand how everyone else works), performing (when you're able to work at the team's utmost potential), and celebrating (when the job's all done). I wish they could have come up with a rhyming word for the fifth stage.

I found myself enthralled with the stories told by the group of trapped people. Just as I like certain members of the group more than others (I'm looking at you, Mr. Pritchett. You were super annoying), I liked certain stories more than others. I particularly enjoyed the stories set in India. I had no idea there was such a history of Chinese emigration to India and subsequent racism against them. I really enjoyed Mangalam and Malathi's stories of being almost forced to come to America. The Pritchett's stories both left me a little cold, however.

The only major issue I had with the book was the end, and part of that is just my own personal preference. I don't enjoy ambiguous resolutions, and we're left not knowing if the group is rescued and survives (for my part, I'm apparently a Debbie Downer because I don't think they did). And also, I don't think I totally got the ending of Uma's story, the deal with whether or not the aurora was real. I didn't realize that was questionable until she said she lied to Jeri. Maybe I should re-read the last chapter and see if I have any divine revelations.

4/5

By the end of May...

2011-05-01T10:49:00.001-07:00

And now we've gotten to the point when writing up what needs to be read each month to keep on track is just laughable. Sad that I only made it four months before my challenges spiraled out of control.

To be Read by the End of May

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans

Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire

La Mort d'Arthur - Thomas Mallory

The In-Between Life of Vikram Lall - MG Vassanji

~~The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove - Susan Gregg Gilmore~~

The Liar's Club - Mary Karr

Amsterdam - Ian McEwan

~~Brother Cadfael's Penance - Ellis Peters~~

I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy

I often find it difficult to read FIVE books in a month. I really think I'm going to get anywhere with TEN???? Ha!

To be read...

2011-05-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Other People We Married - Emma Straub
The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead - Paul Elwork
The Uncoupling - Meg Wolitzer
The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Exponential Apocalypse - Eirik Gumeny
The Last Brother - Nathacha Appanah
Mermaid - Carolyn Turgeon
The Beauty of Humanity Movement - Camilla Gibb
The Lover's Dictionary - David Levithan
The Beloved Dead - Tony Hays (3rd in a series)

9 new books and 1 new series. Not too much this month around...

Music Mix Friday...Duffy "Mercy"

2011-04-29T14:21:00.001-07:00

Music Mix Friday...Cee-Lo Green "Forget You"

2011-04-22T11:21:00.000-07:00

Guess she's an x-box and I'm more an atari...

Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence

2011-04-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

lady chatterley's lover

dh lawrence

c. 1928

324 pages (154 pages read)

stopped reading 4/10/2011

read for: back to the classics challenge, page to screen challenge, penguin classics, 1001 books

*may contain spoilers*

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically.

Only months after marrying Connie, Clifford Chatterley is wounded in the trenches of World War I. Though at first feeling pride in her duty to her husband, now paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, Connie soon finds herself feeling stuck in a loveless marriage and a meaningless life. As Clifford pulls away from his wife, becoming more involved with his new housekeeper and his writing, Connie searches for her own fulfillment in the form of a relationship with her husband's gamekeeper.

I'm not really sure if she ever find fulfillment since I didn't finish it. Even though I have feelings of failure whenever I put down a book, I'm trying to get myself to quit books I'm really not enjoying so I'm not just dragging my feet and can move on to something more enjoyable.

Two things that made me put down the book...First, I really couldn't get behind the relationship between Lady C and the gamekeeper. It seemed really forced. Neither of them seemed to provide any reason for any sort of attraction or affection for the other, and I felt their relationship began very bizarrely, based more on convenience or lack of any other option. Maybe I'm wrong and an understanding of their motives for entering into such a relationship becomes more apparent if I keep reading, but I was put off by their initial love scene. This was a time of sexual and social revolution for women and in England especially, it was quite explosive. So I would have expected Lady C to be less passive in the process.

Second, I have trouble at times when novels are neither plot nor character driven, but are instead given over to the author's musings on a specific philosophical or social issue (in this case female sexuality). Some musing is fine, but I start to tune out significantly when ruminations so greatly take the place of active narration. I like action. To me, that's important, and I feel it can replace and enhance too much musing and can often better show (as opposed to tell) an author's thoughts on whatever issue it is (s)he's musing over. Wilkie Collins is a good example of this (and the first that popped into my head), using No Name as a commentary on the absurdity of inheritance laws.

Last of all, I discovered this is one of those texts where I'm much more interested in its history and influence than actually reading it. The obscenity trial in England in the 60s is pretty interesting.

1/5

As I read this in part for the Page to Screen Challenge, check back later for my review of the 1992 miniseries.

Music Mix Friday...Belinda Carlisle "Heaven is a Place on Earth"

2011-04-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

I'm a little concerned about the closet she seems to be trapped in, but I'm diggin the glow in the dark globes.

The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde

2011-04-05T21:36:00.000-07:00

the fourth bear
jasper fforde
c. 2006
378 pages
completed 3/23/2011

read for: global challenge, tbr challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The little village of Obscurity is remarkable only for its unremarkableness.

Though they received recognition and praise for their work in the Humpty Dumpty murder, things are not going so well for Detective Inspector Jack Spratt, his partner Sergeant Mary Mary, and the rest of the gang at the Nursery Crimes Division. After some bad publicity for using children as live bait in an investigation, the NCD is overlooked when the Gingerbread Man, a psychopathic murderer, escapes from an institution for the criminally insane, and the case is handed over to another department, despite Jack being the arresting officer when the Gingerbread Man was first incarcerated. With no new cases thrown their way, the NCD begin investigating a missing persons case brought to them by an antagonistic reporter. His sister Goldilocks, an investigating journalist, has gone missing. Though at first they seem to be looking into some illegal porridge distribution, Jack can't seem to keep out of the Gingerbread Man's way and it's becoming more and more clear that the two cases have some kind of connection. If only Jack and Mary were allowed to investigate...

I've now read both books in the series and am eagerly awaiting the next one. I really enjoy all the random nursery rhyme and fairy tale characters (especially when they're just a name-drop that could really be easily missed such as the shout out to Bobby Shafto) and the world Jasper Fforde has created. It's not quite as awesome as Sondheim's Into the Woods, an incredible Broadway musical which explores what happens after "happily ever after," but it's close.

While reading, I did think at times there was a little too much going on without quite enough explanation. I remember thinking this during the first book too. I don't mean within the mystery, that I could follow pretty well, but just in the world itself. The politics regarding the social status of PDRs (Persons of Dubious Reality) and anthropomorphic bears could get a little confusing. Maybe some people would find the immense complexities Fforde is able to create an asset, but for me it detracted somewhat, however that could be just my own shortcoming.

Like the first of the series, I really enjoy the characters. Jack and Mary work so well together. And even the smaller characters are well fleshed out, especially those with folkloric backgrounds. It was exciting to see the way the famous foibles and characteristics manifested themselves, and to get explanations for plot holes in the original sources material (such as the disparate temperatures of the three bears' porridge). Though they initially really annoyed me, I ended up especially enjoying the inclusion if Punch and Judy. I really appreciate Fforde's inclusion of more obscure folklore references. I would have liked a little more time spent with Prometheus and Pandora, since there's obviously a history there. I'm interested to see where that will go. Maybe in the next one.

One last thing I just want to mention, and this is the only thing about the books that really annoys me. I don't like the little excerpts at the beginning of each chapter. They're like clippings from magazines and newspapers and history books (fictitious ones from the Nursery Crimes world) and for me, they add nothing. In fact, after the first few chapters, I just ignored them entirely.

4/5

By the end of April...

2011-04-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's sad when it's only April 1 and you already know there's no way you're going to complete your challenges for the year. I always start out so ambitious, mostly because I refuse to accept how slow of a reader I am. Plus I'm easily distracted. I mentioned in my last review that I did just finish a quarter a few weeks ago so I had final papers and final exams to take up a lot of my time, but also so did watching Chuck and Psych with my sisters. The monthly lists are getting longer. Soon they'll be completely out of control...

To be Read by the End of April
Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans
Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire
~~One Amazing Thing - Chitra Banejee~~
~~Divakaruni~~
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Slow Man - JM Coetzee
La Mort d'Arthur - Thomas Malory

To be read...

2011-04-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

An Irish Country Doctor - Patrick Taylor
The Watery Part of the World - Michael Parker
The Personal History of Rachel DuPree - Ann Weisgarber
The Love of My Youth - Mary Gordan
A Long Time Ago and Essentially True - Brigid Pasulka
The Four Mrs. Bradwells - Meg Waite Clayton
The Peach Keeper - Sarah Addison Allen
The Judge and His Hangman - Friedrich Durrenmatt
Blood Work - Holly Tucker
The Report - Jessica Francis Kane
Portrait of an Unknown Woman - Vanora Bennett
Black Bird - Michel Basilieres
The Girl in the Blue Beret - Bobbie Ann Mason
Galore - Michael Crummery
Queen Hereafter - Susan Fraser King
The Midwife of Venice - Roberta Rich
Deliverance from Evil - Francis Hill
My Most Excellent Year - Steve Kluger
A Man Lay Dead - Ngaio Marsh (series)
False Mermaid - Erin Hart (3rd in a series)

18 new books and 2 new series. And the list goes on...

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

2011-03-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

the grapes of wrath
john steinbeck
c. 1939
619 pages (232 read)
stopped reading 3/28/2011

read for: back to the classics challenge, page to screen challenge, 1001 book, penguin classics

*may contain spoilers*

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

Tom Joad is released from prison after serving a four year sentence for killing another man in a bar fight. He returns home to his family in Oklahoma and finds them packing all their belongings in one lone truck, having been pushed off the land in favor of faster and more cost efficient tractors. Deciding to break his parole, Tom joins his family as they journey to California in search of the American dream.

It took me two months and I only got this far. Some of that I can attribute to the end of the quarter and finals and all, but that's mostly an excuse. I wanted to like this book so badly! So much so that I may actually revisit it at some point. But for now I'm deciding to put it down. Despite writing my senior AP English paper on Steinbeck when I was in high school, I haven't read a whole lot of his work (in all honestly, of the three major texts I discussed in said paper, one of them actually was The Grapes of Wrath even though I didn't read it). The two novels of his I've read are not even quintessential Steinbeck. Instead of East of Eden or Of Mice and Men, I've read The Winter of Our Discontent and The Pearl. Both I really enjoyed, and I looked forward to reading his more popular work.

And there were things about Grapes I really enjoyed. Steinbeck has a beautiful voice, and he has an incredible ability to transport his readers with his words. And his characters are complex and flawed and deeply relatable, even though I've obviously never lived in Depression-era Oklahoma. Those elements were alive and well in Grapes and in those respects I really enjoyed it.

My problem reading The Grapes of Wrath came from the supplementary chapters. Every other chapter followed the story of parolee Tom Joad and his family's exodus to the bounty of California. The ones in between explored the experience of the Depression and the Dust Bowl on a more national level. These chapters were often beautifully written and were I to ever become a history teacher, many of them would be read in my class during our discussion of the Depression. However, for me, the way they broke up the action of the story completely stalled the momentum. Everything would come to a screeching halt, and the fits and starts kept me from fully engaging in what was going on. Like I said, maybe at some point I will try again, but for now I need to put it down.

1/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2011-03-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

Les Miserables
Digne, France 1815

Are you There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume

2011-03-22T12:04:00.000-07:00

are you there god? it's me margaret
judy blume
c. 1970
149 pages
completed 3/13/2011

read for: back to the classics challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.

Margaret is an eleven year old girl who moves to New Jersey with her parents. While her parents are determined to raise their daughter as neither Christian of Jewish, her grandparents are tugging her in both directions and Margaret can't decide which one she thinks she is. While dealing with this internal struggle, Margaret also has to navigate a new school and new friends all while trying to grow up.

I read this for the Back to the Classics Challenge (see sidebar) in the category of young adult classics, because I think this is often touted as like the ultimate young adult book. As such, I feel a little weird reviewing it (especially since I didn't love it), so this will be a short review. Somehow I missed Judy Blume when I grew up. I mean, I knew of her and her books, but I was always more of a Ramona Quimby or Alice McKinley girl myself. I think maybe that's one of the reasons I didn't enjoy reading Margaret more now that I'm older. I don't have any nostalgic blinders on. Like, my sister the literature scholar and I like to have dance parties where we jam to the Backstreet Boys. We used to love the Backstreet Boys when we were much younger and had questionable taste in music. Had Justin Beiber and the Jonas Brothers come out in the 90s when we were that age we'd probably love them too. But since they didn't and we're all grown up now and have ~~still questionable~~ exceptional taste in music, we can't judge them with our little girl brains. We judge them with our all grown up brains and know that our tastes are far too sophisticated for Justin Beiber (except that one really catchy song, and only because they sang it on Glee). So that's how I feel about Judy Blume. Had I read it as a young adult maybe I'd still think it was awesome. But reading it as an adult?

I felt like the issues raised never got resolved. Like her confusion about God and that fact that her new best friend was not exactly a very nice person. And I have to say, I never knew anyone who was 11 or 12 and was as obsessed with getting their period as the girls in young adult books. It was not nearly as big a deal as its made out to be. Neither I nor any of my friends used it as a marker of how grown up we were and no on I knew was super excited for it to happen, seeing as how when it's never happened to you it just sounds kind of gross and inconvenient. I think some good issues were raised in the book, things that are important to talk about with kids, but it ended kind of flat for me.

3/5

Music Mix Friday...Rebecca Black "Friday"

2011-03-18T16:30:00.000-07:00

I promised my sister the literature scholar that this would be my music video this Friday. Possibly this is the worst song ever? I mean for real, girlfriend, no one cares if you sit in the front seat or the back.

An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro

2011-03-10T13:42:00.000-08:00

an artist of the floating world
kazuo ishguro
c. 1986
208 pages
completed 2/26/2011

read for: i want more challenge, global challenge, historical fiction challenge, tbr challenge, 100 greatest novels, 1001 books

*may contain spoilers*

If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as "the Bridge of Hesitation,"you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two ginko trees.

Ono is a retired artist living in post war Japan. One daughter is married and the other is just beginning her marriage negotiations. Negotiations fell through for Noriko a year earlier leading Ono to look back on his involvement in World War II and attempt to understand how his actions have affected his life and the lives of those around him.

This was an interestingly structured book. I often don't like books that aren't linear and this has a lot of nonlinear elements. It jumps back in time from what's considered the present (1948-1950 Japan) to different memories before, during, and immediately after WWII. But it worked out for me since there was still one underlying linear story: Ono working towards his daughter's marriage negotiation. It was through this one linear story that Ono visits his memories. This is a story with an unreliable narrator. He remembers things differently in 1948 than he does in 1950. He goes through a period of remembering himself as someone who acted with honor during the war to someone who claims to be able to take responsibility for working in a way that now is not looked on well, creating propaganda for the country. However, he never quite comes around to understanding the real root of his dishonor and what he did to so horribly tear apart certain people's lives.

Ono is an extremely complex character and despite thinking that he's changing his perception of himself, he actually continues on in a state of denial. Ono's daughters and grandson are less complex, but instead stand to represent changing attitudes in Japan (and actually much of the rest of the world). The older daughter, subservient and always at the very least acting as if she's giving way to her father's wants, is representative of pre-war Japan. The younger daughter, who constantly butts heads with her father, and Ichiro, Ono's grandson who dreams of being an America cowboy, are indicative of the vast Americanization that occurred as a result of the end of World War II. While their characters might not be overly complex, what they represent helps to shape Ono's character.

4/5

Music Mix Friday...Abba "Mamma Mia"

2011-03-04T14:00:00.000-08:00

Am I the only one who thinks maybe they need to work on putting some emotion in their facial expressions? Brokenhearted doesn't mean bored.

The Holy Thief Movie Review

2011-03-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

the holy thief
1998
starring: derek jacobi, anthony green, benedict sandiford, and louise delamere

watched for: page to screen challenge

*may contain spoilers*

I know that I just said in my last movie review that I'm an advocate for people cutting movies based on books a break sometimes, but again I'm going to have to be a complainer for this movie. I've seen all of the Brother Cadfael episodes that were broadcast on "Mystery." In fact, I'd seen them all multiple times long before I ever started reading the series. But this is one of the few I've only rarely seen. I assumed that was simply due to Sean Pertwee not playing Hugh Berringar (because really, what's the point of watching if someone else is playing Hugh?), but after revisiting the movie for this challenge, I've decided there are two major problems, each containing LOTS of reasons to stay away. This movie installment is all kinds of terrible.

Problem One: Plot. TOTALLY, TOTALLY DIFFERENT! There's a somewhat different mystery (Daalny's been kidnapped, what?) and a completely different murderer and motive. Yes, I did feel like the motive in the book was a little weak and so I assume the filmmakers agreed which led to the change, and that I could totally get on board with, except what they changed it to made no sense to me. And became historically inaccurate.

Problem Two: Characters. Just about every character in the film is a major distortion of their print counterparts. In the book, Tutillo is mischievous and a bit of a rogue. You honestly feel there's a possibility he was the killer. In the movie he's nothing more than a wet blanket. Prior Herluin, though he's obviously in the wrong regarding St. Winifred and is a bit fanatically devout, is not nearly the ridiculous demonic caricature that's portrayed on screen. And Beaumont goes from being someone who's questionable and complex to a cruel and creepy creature. Even the regular characters are completely distorted. Hugh Berringar, Cadfael's best friend who's usually so fair minded and level headed and in basically ever way Cadfael's equal, is now an ass who inexplicably believes in ridiculous things such as dunk tests (where if you sink in water you're guilty) and cares less for justice and more for easy fixes. And saddest of all was Cadfael himself. I truely think Derej Jacobi IS Cadfael, but this episode had him picking fights and being snotty and cruel towards everyone and it was just horrible.

I really do mostly love these movies (especially One Corpse Too Many and The Sanctuary Sparrow) but this is the one to skip.

2/5 Read my review of the original book here.

Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2011-03-03T17:54:00.000-08:00

of love and other demons
gabriel garcia marquez
c. 1994
147 pages
original language: spanish
completed 2/17/2011

read for: i want more challenge, what's in a name challenge, historical fiction challenge

*may contain spoilers*

An ash-gray dog with a white blaze on its forehead burst onto the rough terrain of the market on the first Sunday of December, knocked down tables of fried food, overturned Indians' stalls and lottery kiosks, and bit four people who happened t cross its path.

Don Ygnacio de Alfaro y Dueñas is a marquis in Spanish ruled South America (what is now Colombia), fading into obscurity with a wife who has been drugged into a state of near constant delirium. The daughter neither of them wanted has been pushed out of the house to be raised in the slave quarters, growing up speaking the Yoruban language of the slaves better than her own family's Spanish. It is only after she is bit by a rabid dog that Sierva Maria really comes to the attention of her father. Though she shows no signs of having contracted rabies herself, her bizarre behavior and mannerisms lead her father to conclude she is possessed by demons. Sierva Maria is sent to a convent to by exorcised. There, she develops a close relationship with Father Cayetano Delaura, the priest sent to oversee her ordeal, who may come to be possessed by an even more powerful demon: love.

Gariel Garcia Marquez is a beautiful writer. Beautiful. The emotional aspect of the detail is amazing. I always feel (I say always, yet this is only the second work of his I've read) that he is able to incorporate so much mundane life into his prose that in less capable hands would seem both irrelevant and kinda gross (in both this and Love in the Time of Cholera there is a passage or two that goes into some detail regarding specific characters' bodily functions). Instead, Marquez is able to make passages like those seem like such natural inclusions and ones that are vital to the integrity of the story. I don't often notice an author's prose style too much unless it bothers me, but Marquez stands out.

The novel (novella really) is very short, so there's not too much room for character development, but for those characters who needed it (Sierva Maria, Father Delaura, the Marquis) it was there in spades. Sierva Maria was quite the enigma. It's never really explained what her demon possession really is. For my part, I think her possession was nothing more than a cultural clash. She had been raised in the slave quarters, completely neglected by her family, so she was raised with different values, cultural norms, beliefs, and language. While differences like these would be expected from the African slaves, these perceived peculiarities were incomprehensible in their own daughter. Plus, she was basically tortured with "cures" for rabies, and that will really mess a person up.

I enjoy books that look into the historical practice of exorcism. It's often pretty terrifying and horrific, but fascinating at the same time. There were some extremely brutal processes to get rid of demons, and it's no wonder so many of them were fatal. My sister the literature scholar and I were discussing exorcist horror movies briefly last night, and I really think sometimes they should go the other way, with the horror part not being the person who's being possessed but the exorcism itself instead. Well, maybe they already do. I'm not so much into the horror movies...Scary stuff.

4/5

By the end of March...

2011-03-01T18:47:00.000-08:00

Okay, so February didn't quite end up being the catch up month I thought it would be. No worries, though. I did some reorganizing of the reading schedule and it's not looking TOO bad. March might be a bit of a beast, but we'll see what happens...

To be Read by the End of March
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
~~The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde~~
Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
~~Are You There God, it's Me Margaret - Judy Blume~~
Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire

Don't worry, I don't actually think I'll finish Les Mis by the end of the ~~year~~ month...

To be read...

2011-03-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

Best Laid Plans - Terry Fallis
The House at Riverton - Kate Morton
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter - Tom Franklin
West of Here - Jonathan Evans
Silverlock - John Myers Myers
Independent People - Halldon Laxness
The Imperfectionists - Tom Rachman
The Tudor Secret - CW Gortner
Too Great a Lady - Amanda Elyot
The Ballad and the Source - Rosamund Lehman
The Book of a Thousand Days - Shannon Hale
Sins of the House of Borgia - Sarah Bower
When We Were Strangers - Pamela Schoenewaldt
No Exit - Jean-Paul Sarte
Look Again - Lisa Scottoline
The Hangman's Daughter - Oliver Potzsch
Lud in the Mist - Hope Mirrlees
Madame Tussaud - Michelle Moran
The Anatomy - Andrew Taylor
The History of History - Ida Hattemer-Higgins
Chess - Stefan Zweig
Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang
The Tenderness of Wolves - Stef Penney
The Creation of Eve - Lyn Cullen
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown - Ruth Pennebaker
The Arrow Chest - Robert Perry
The Man in the Picture - Susan Hill
The Coffins of Little Hope - Timothy Schaffert
The Red Garden - Alice Hoffman
Letters from Home - Kristina McMorris
Death and the Running Patterer - Robin Adair
The Fates Will Find Their Way - Hannah Pittard
Three Sisters - Bi Feiyu
To Serve a King - Donna Russo Morin
The Doctor and the Diva - Adrienne McDonnell
Exit the Actress - Priya Parmar

36 new books added to the list...

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2011-02-22T21:28:00.001-08:00

An Artist of the Floating World
Arakawa, Japan 1948

Music Mix Friday...The Pipettes "ABC"

2011-02-18T17:13:00.000-08:00

Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler

2011-02-18T15:24:00.000-08:00

full dark house
christopher fowler
c. 2003
349 pages
completed 1/26/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge, peculiar crimes unit mysteries

*may contain spoilers*

It really was a hell of a blast.

After the death of Arthur Bryant, his partner for over fifty years, John May, detective of London's Peculiar Crimes Unit, is determined to find his friend's murderer. His investigation keeps bringing up references to the very first case he and Arthur ever took on together. John has to dig into his memory to a time of blackouts and bombs to remember a grisly series of murders at the Palace Theater in order to avenge his friend.

I am almost finished reading the Brother Cadfael books and so I'm looking for a new series of mysteries to take their place. I was a little wary going into this one, since my sister the librarian said it was boring, but I should have just remembered she's also told me "The Woman in White" was boring which has turned out to be one of my favorite books. I think this will do nicely as a replacement series (though don't worry, Hugh Berringar, no one will ever replace you in my heart). It's not nearly as long as Brother Cadfael, but I believe the author isn't finished writing them. Anyway, onto actually talking about the book...

Since it was the first of the series, this is the book where not only do we, the readers, get to meet Arthur and John and their band of peculiars, but they get to meet each other for the first time. I really liked the way the meeting was done. Instead of starting at the beginning, we meet them on the day of Arthur's death and then travel back 65 years or so to the London Blitz and John and Arthur's first case together. Seeing the parallel between the first case and Arthur's murder kept the two stories well connected.

I loved Arthur and John. They were a great odd couple and that's what you want in a somewhat comical detective duo, like Shawn and Gus from Psych or Booth and Brennan from Bones (though maybe without the latter's romantic tension - of course this is only book one so who knows). John's a perfect newbie straight man to Arthur's tragically comic eccentric. I also liked how young they are. John's nineteen and Arthur's barely into his twenties, yet here they are, forced by the war to grow up pretty quick. But they've still got quite a bit of youthful exuberance and naivete.

Lastly, I love when a book makes constant reference to another work (in this case: the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld by Jacques Offenbach). I love getting introduced to something else through the book I'm reading.

4/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2011-02-15T22:03:00.001-08:00

The Grapes of Wrath
Sallisaw, Oklahoma 1930s

Scaramouche Movie Review

2011-02-13T16:06:00.000-08:00

scaramouche
1952
starring: mel ferrer, stewart granger, janet leigh, and eleanor parker

watched for: page to screen challenge

*may contain spoilers*

I am usually a strong advocate for film versions of books. I think people sometimes can be extremely harsh in judging the transition from one medium to another and can be overly critical of every minute detail change. For this movie, however, I think I have to join the ranks of the overly critical. Now, there were certain changes I could understand and get on board with, such as condensing the story so that Andre's time in the theater troupe and his time learning to fence happened simultaneously. I understand changing the age of the Marquis to make it more believable to have him and Andre both vying for the affections of Aline. And I even understand changing Climene's name to the much less French Lenore (for a 1952 audience). But that's about as far as the understanding could go.

There was no point in making Lenore Andre's girlfriend from the get-go and Aline a girl he'd never met before. Aline went from being a strong-willed, spunky, and even sometimes arrogant young woman in the book to a demur child-like innocent in the film, just as Andre went from being a thoughtful and intelligent man to being basically a boor and a man-whore. I really couldn't understand the appeal of making Andre fall in love with Aline only to make him "discover" her to be his sister (he finds out later she's not). Who needs a gross incest subplot? Andre's whole family plot unfolds so interestingly in the book, and yet the way it was changed for the film honestly left me confused. I'm all for changes that make sense and/or enhance viewing pleasure, but these changes were pointless.

The thing I found the most ridiculous? In the book, Andre plays a pretty big role in the beginning of the French Revolution. French politics are the backbone of the story. The movie, however, reduced Andre's whole motivation to that of mere revenge, almost no politics in sight. The only reason the viewer would know this takes place during the French Revolution is the randomly added character of Marie Antoinette (not in the book) and Philippe's pamphlet ~~blatantly~~ subtly titled "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." In the movie, Andre makes no political speeches and his role as Scaramouche in the Commedia is reduced to nothing more than a slapstick clown. Scaramouche is not just a clown. He's supposed to be a satirist. Also, if we're really going to get picky, he's supposed to be Spanish and dressed all in black (hence Freddy Mercury referring to him as a silhouette and asking him to fandango). If I wanted to continue in this vein, I could also complain about Lenore being called Columbine (Columbine was a soubrette, a flirtatious and mischievous servant, whereas Climene was supposed to be an innamorati, one of the lovers), but I'll let it lie.

To be totally fair, had I not read the book I think I could have enjoyed it a lot. In fact, I did manage to enjoy the second half once I'd gotten over my initial abhorrence to all the seemingly ridiculous changes. And I will note that it does have some historical value in having (one of?) the longest continuous swashbuckling sword-fights ever filmed (clocking in at over six minutes), which was a great scene. But it wasn't quite enough for me.

3/5

Read my review of the original book here.

Music Mix Friday...Mumford & Sons "Little Lion Man"

2011-02-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

I like this song. It's a touch NSFW though, so watch out.

By the end of February...

2011-02-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm not off to a great start. I'm already behind and we're only one month in, so February is going to be catch up month. Maybe...

To be Read by the End of February
The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde
~~An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro~~
Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans
Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
~~Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez~~

Hmmm. And February's the short month, too...

To be read...

2011-02-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares - Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
A Tiny Bit Marvelous - Dawn French
The Convent - Panos Karnezis
Indiscretion - Jude Morgan
At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream - Wade Rouse
India Black - Carol K Carr
The Kitchen House - Kathleen Grissom
Of Bees and Mist - Erick Setiawan
The Ladies of Lyndon - Margaret Kennedy
The Queen of Last Hopes - Susan Higgenbotham
Rochester the Mad Earl - Kathleen Kellow
Day of Revenge - Deanna Proach
26a - Diana Evans
The Ice Princess - Camilla Lackberg
I Still Dream About You - Fannie Flagg
The Tea Rose - Jennifer Donnelly
How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack - Chuck Sambuchino

17 new books added to the list...

The Holy Thief - Ellis Peters

2011-01-28T15:52:00.000-08:00

the holy thief
ellis peters
c. 1992
275 pages
completed 1/12/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge, page to screen challenge

*may contain spoilers*

In the height of a hot summer, in late August of 1144, Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex, deferred to the heat of the sun, and made the final, fatal mistake of his long and opportunist career.

Ramsey Abbey had fallen prey to a band of soldiers of the Empress Maud's party who had left their cause for the more fortuitous pursuits of ransacking and pillaging northern England. The sudden death of Geoffrey de Mandeville left them without a leader and the monks were able to reclaim their abbey. Sub-Prior Herluin and his enigmatic companion Brother Tutillo travel to Shrewsbury in search of money, supplies, and labor to aid in Ramsey Abbey's rebuilding. They stay long enough to help the monks of Shrewsbury protect their treasures against a tremendous flood. When the flood is over and the monks of Ramsey leave, Shrewsbury discovers its most precious treasure, the bones of St. Winifred, is missing. It's quickly discovered to be making its way to Ramsey. Brother Cadfael aids Hugh Beringar to discover if the theft was the work of a man or if St. Winifred herself made her way into the cart. But before the matter can be settled, Cadfael and Hugh may find their holy thief to be a murderer as well.

As the penultimate book in the Brother Cadfael Chronicles, The Holy Thief doesn't disappoint. Brother Cadfael is right in the thick of things, befriending and aiding the accused, breaking some abbey rules in order to investigate, conferring and conspiring with Hugh and Abbot Radulfus. I was pretty disappointed with the last installment (see: Summer of the Danes), but this one was back on track.

Cadfael's relationship with St. Winifred has always been an element of these books that I've really enjoyed. Sometimes Cadfael can come across as slightly too practical for a monk so witnessing their communion is always nice, especially considering what's actually in St. Winifred's reliquary. I also really appreciated the balance between Cadfael's practical feelings on the trial by bible element of the theft (a scene I really enjoyed) as well as his experience of the miraculous as he interpreted the words. Though he knows those can easily be rigged and interpreted in many ways, the words spoke to him very specifically.

In every installment in the series there is always at least one set of lovers (one of which is usually the accused) that Cadfael helps to bring together. And USUALLY I always like them. There have been occasions where I wasn't wild about one or the other (again Summer of the Danes springs to mind). In this case, I liked both characters separately, but the two together left me cold. First off, they didn't interact a whole lot so I wasn't able to see and understand them falling in love. They seemed a little mismatched to me.

I always love when one of these books makes reference to characters and events from previous episodes. And this one had lots of shout outs: Brother Columbanus, Liliwin, and Soulien Blount, all from different books. Nice.

I only have one more to go. I'm going to be so sad to see the series end. :(

4/5

As I read this in part for the Page to Screen Challenge, check out my review of the 1998 TV-movie version here.

Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini

2011-01-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

scaramouche
rafael sabatini
c. 1921
406 pages
completed 1/8/2011

read for: historical fiction challenge, page to screen challenge

*may contain spoilers*

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

Distraught after the murder of his childhood friend, Monsier Philippe Vilmorin, for his "dangerous gift of eloquence," Andre-Louis Moreau vows to see justice done. After being brushed off by the law due to the murderer being a Marquis, Andre-Louis takes to the streets of France to incite the Third Estate against the over privileged nobility, continuing the work Philippe died for, though he himself doesn't believe in his friend's idealism. His speeches, echos of Philippe's words, are considered treasonous, and Andre-Louis is forced to go into hiding. He takes up with a band of improvisational actors in the tradition of the Commedia dell'Arte, but he doesn't forget his vow to avenge Philippe or the politics that drove him into hiding. Andre-Louis's life becomes an adventure of secrecy and swashbuckling sword fights, set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, during which his original cynicism may yet become the idealism of his friend.

First off, I always love a strong and memorable opening line and this is definitely a great one. And it really sets the tone for the rest of the book. I don't often notice an author's particular writing style and sentence structure unless it annoys me, but this is one of the times when I noticed how much I felt it added to the story.

Plot-wise I found this book to be constantly engaging with elements of both drama and comedy. It had a good balance of both which I found refreshing. Sometimes adventure/swashbuckling stories like this can take themselves a little too seriously and be too straightforward. And at other times they can try to be a little too hyper-aware and fall over themselves trying to be in on the joke. I hope that made sense. There was a lot of humor, especially in Andre-Louis' scenes with the acting troupe, and some rather dark comedy when Andre-Louis would address the National Assembly after killing other Assemblymen in duels. Yet there was constant drama as well, both political (this is the French Revolution, after all) and much more personal.

I found certain aspects of the personal drama to be a little soapy (the identity of Andre-Louis' mother was obvious as soon as the woman was introduced, even though Andre-Louis had no idea), but for the most part it was deeply complex (I was SHOCKED by the identity of Andre-Louis' father). One aspect that really made the book enjoyable for me was the fact that the villain, the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr, is introduced very much through the eyes of Andre-Louis and Philippe and so for the first half of the book he seems like nothing more than a monster. However, as the book goes on the reader is able to see him through his own eyes and really come to understand some of his motivations making him much more complex and more man than monster. At first these scenes seemed so incongruous with the way Andre-Louis viewed him, but eventually I was able to put all the pieces together to understand him more. By the end he's much more an antagonist than a straight up villain.

The last time I read a book that focused so much on the politics of the French Revolution, I really wasn't able to comment on the historical accuracy of that book (see: Mistress of the Revolution). This time, however, I was just coming off a history class on the French Revolution. I have to say, it's extremely enjoyable to read a historically set book and really feel like you have a solid grasp on the history of the time. I mean, let's be for real, one class hardly makes me an expert or anything, but having that knowledge really enhanced my enjoyment. I even have a historical quibble! In the book, Andre-Louis went from a member of the National Constituent Assembly to the Legislative Assembly newly created under the constitution of 1791. This would have been impossible, however, as Robespierre passed a "self-denying ordinance" barring any member of the National Assembly from sitting for the Legislative Assembly. This one quibble in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the book, though. In fact, it just made me feel smart. If there had been lots of mistakes, that would have been another story...

5/5

As I read this in part for the Page to Screen Challenge, check out my review of the 1952 film version.

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2011-01-11T21:24:00.000-08:00

The Holy Thief Shrewsbury Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul Shropshire, England 1144

Gilded history...

2011-01-05T12:19:00.000-08:00

NewSouth Books is publishing a newly edited version of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which is raising a bit of controversy in the literary world, from what I understand. For those who don't know, the new edition removes all use of the "n-word" (which is used, I believe, over 200 times in the course of the novel) and replaces it with the word "slave" in order to update the book for 21st century political correctness and encourage more teachers to include this book in their curriculum on American literature. I don't want to get into any big debate on whether or not this is censorship (in my personal opinion it's not exactly, seeing as the editor doesn't want or expect this edition to take the place of all non-edited editions...it's more like the radio version of a pop song), but I did want to express some thoughts I had on the subject.

In my opinion, this change doesn't make sense and significantly affects certain key elements of the novel. First and foremost, I feel it's important to point out that those two words are in no way interchangeable. As deplorable an institution as slavery is, the word "slave" isn't derogatory. It's an accurate label and description of certain people's social status at the time. The "n-word," however, is a term deeply rooted in hatred and racism. Replacing one for the other completely changes the connotations of Huck's character and his relationship with Jim, which are the crux of the novel. Secondly, this change takes away from the historical accuracy and authenticity of the novel. Such blatant racism was a defining characteristic of this time period. To erase that from the book is just an attempt to sweeten our history and there's no need for that. All peoples have periods of their history that they look back on with regret. Slavery is just one of America's, for instance. To cover it up in this way is a disservice.

I know one argument for this new edition is the idea that it will get it taught in more schools. It was taught in my eleventh grade English class. Granted, I live in an area with a rather low African American population with not one African American student in this particular class which could very well have some baring on any lack of controversy we found. As a pinnacle of American literature, I strongly think it should be taught in schools. And yes, removing that particular word may help it get into classrooms. But at that point, do we even want it in classrooms if it's a misrepresentation of history?

Like, I said, just some thoughts I had on the subject. Feel free to disagree with me... And for a really in depth analysis of the editor's introduction to the new edition and a rebuttal to his arguments, read Adam's post at Roof Beam Reader. He's much more articulate than I am, and makes a compelling argument.

No Name - Wilkie Collins

2011-01-04T19:32:00.000-08:00

no name
wilkie collins
c. 1862
610 pages
completed 12/22/2010

read for: wilkie collins mini challenge, penguin classics

*may contain spoilers*

The hands on the hall clock pointed to half-past six in the morning.

Andrew Vanstone and his lady have a secret. Despite having two daughters who are quite grown up (Norah is 26 and Magdalen 18), Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone have only just last week gotten married. Due to English law in the 1840s, a wedding makes any previously written will completely null and void and unless specifically provided for, any illegitimate children unable to inherit. On their way to a lawyer to rewrite their will, Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone are accidentally killed, leaving Magdalen and Norah's future in the hands of their miserly and cruel uncle. Once realizing their uncle has no plans of following his brother's intentions and providing for her and her sister, Magdalen ventures into London with the aide of a charming swindler and his wife with a plot to reclaim her fortune and her name.

Out of the three Wilkie Collins novels I've read so far, this is probably my least favorite. That being said, it's still one of my favorite reads of 2010. Wilkie Collins has definitely become one of my favorite authors, and I plan to read many, many more of his works. Unlike the others I've read, No Name wasn't a mystery or detective novel. There were some mysterious happenings in the first few chapters, but the family secret was quickly revealed as the major conflict for our heroine and not the end discovery. As such, No Name became a revenge thriller, with Magdalen Vanstone fighting to reclaim her fortune and more importantly her identity. In this novel, Wilkie Collins made sure to include a good deal of social commentary on inheritance laws of the time, some of which seem quite bizarre (such as a wedding completely voiding any wills previously made by the couple, either male or female). Magdalen lost her name and her fortune on a mere technicality, despite the obvious plans of her beloved father.

For me, the story took a little while to really pick up, which is why I've labeled it as my least favorite among the three. Magdalen didn't really begin her schemes of revenge until well after half the book had gone by. I realize that certain things needed to be established, such as her family life before the deaths of her parents and her ability on the stage, and those parts were interesting and well written, but 300 pages is a lot to go through before the REAL story starts. Once she took up with Captain Wragg and she began her battle of wits against her enemy's housekeeper Mrs. Lecount (who was rather reminiscent of Count Fosco from The Woman in White) things really took off and became unput-down-able. Their scams were pretty ingenious and well executed and actually made me quite anxious through a good deal of them. So while not as consistently exciting as some of his other suspense novels, in the end it was still an incredibly thrilling read.

4/5

A few last minute additions...

2011-01-02T15:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, it's official. I've gone insane and am signing up for two more challenges I'll never finish. To be fair, a lot of the books on these two lists are crossovers from other challenges (and one reread), but there are still a fair number of new ones, too. So here goes.

First, as a major lover of the movies, I'm joining the 2011 Page to Screen Challenge. I've decided to attempt the third level, so 15 books. 20 seemed like too many, but 10 was too few. Really, I want to do 12 to fit beautifully into the 12 months of the year, but 15 works, too. I'm also planning to participate by both reading and watching, so I'm going to watch all the movies too. My books will be...

1. Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
2. The Holy Thief - Ellis Peters
3. Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence
4. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
5. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
6. La Mort d'Arthur - Thomas Malory
7. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
8. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
9. I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
10. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
11. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
12. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
13. Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
14. Eduring Love - Ian McEwan
15. Harry Potter - JK Rowling

And the other is the Historical Fiction Challenge. What with my love of history and all, this one's kind of obvious for me. And in this instance I decided to just go crazy and choose the highest level "severe bookaholism," or 20 books. I know. Right after I posted above that 20 was too many. My books will be...

1. Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
2. The Holy Thief - Ellis Peters
3. Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler
4. Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
5. Brother Cadfael's Penance - Ellis Peters
6. The Glass of Time - Michael Cox
7. I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy
8. The Diamond - Julie Baumgold
9. The Revolt of the Eaglets - Jean Plaidy
10. The Blue Star - Tony Early
11. The Heart of the Lion - Jean Plaidy
12. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
13. The Maiden with the White Hands - Rosalind Miles
14. Small Wars - Sadie Jones
15. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman
16. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
17. Dragonwyck - Anya Seton
18. The White Queen - Philippa Gregory
19. The Day the Falls Stood Still - Cathy Marie Buchanan
20. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro

By the end of January

2011-01-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

Okay, starting a bran new year. Last year ended kinda crappy on the book front. I don't know what happened to the last few months but things just kind of petered out. But it's a new year with new challenges and new goals. Hopefully I can be more productive this year, but you know...probably not.

Books to Read by the End of January
~~Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini~~
~~The Holy Thief -Ellis Peters~~
~~Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler~~
The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde
Lady Chatterly's Lover - DH Lawrence
Company of Liars - Karen Maitland

A little challenging for me. Let's see if I can cross everything off...

To be read...

2011-01-01T22:57:00.000-08:00

Lady's Maid - Margaret Forster
Voltaire's Calligrapher - Pablo de Santis
Haweswater - Sarah Hall
The Distant House - Kate Morton
The Land of Green Ginger - Winifred Holtby
The Greek Maiden and the English Lord - Patty Apostolides
Polyxena - Herb Allenger
The Letter Opener - Kyo Maclean
We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
The Colour - Rose Tremain
Love is a Mix Tape - Rob Sheffield
The Sherlockian - Graham Moore

13 new books...

As of 2011...

2011-01-01T22:20:00.001-08:00

100 Greatest Novels: 23 out of 100 (23%)
1001 Books to Read Before You Die (Original): 51 out of 1001 (5.1%)
1001 Books to Read Before You Die (Updates): 2 out of 293 (.7%)
Entertainment Weekly's New Classics: 17 out of 100 (17%)
Penguin Classics: 54 out of 695 (7.8%)

Books Read in 2010

2011-01-01T11:02:00.000-08:00

1. The Heretic's Apprentice - Ellis Peters 5/5
2. The Virgin of Small Plains - Nancy Pickard 5/5
3. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera 3/5
4. Confessions - St. Augustine 4/5
5. Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 4/5
6. Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir 5/5
7. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 4/5
8. The Romanov Bride - Robert Alexander 3/5
9. Niccolo Rising - Dorothy Dunnett 4/5
10. The Whiskey Rebels - David Liss 4/5
11. What They Fought For - James McPherson
12. The Crusader - Alexander Eisner 4/5
13. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 1/5
14. Mistress of the Revolution - Catherine Delors 4/5
15. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser 4/5
16. The Potter's Field - Ellis Peters 5/5
17. The Adventures of David Simple - Sarah Fielding 1/5
18. The Last Queen - CW Gortner 5/5
19. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt 3/5
20. The Gathering - Anne Enright 3/5
21. Belong to Me - Marisa de los Santos 4/5
22. Like Mayflies in the Stream - Shauna Roberts 3/5
23. The Coffee Trader - David Liss 4/5
24. The Moonstone - Wilkie Collins 5/5
25. Broken Paradise - Cecilia Samartin 4/5
26. A Prayer for the City - Buzz Bissinger 4/5
27. The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle 3/5
28. Jim the Boy - Tony Early 4/5
29. The Summer of the Danes - Ellis Peters 3/5
30. Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey 5/5
31. Cleopatra Daughter - Michelle Moran 4/5
32. On Beauty - Zadie Smith 3/5
33.The Known World - Edward P Jones 1/5
34. Possession - AS Byatt 1/5
35. Peony in Love - Lisa See 4/5
36. Looking for Alaska - John Green 4/5
37. Beloved - Toni Morrison 1/5
38. Candide - Voltaire 3/5
39. No Name - Wilkie Collins 4/5

Favorite Fiction: Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
Least Favorite Fiction: The Adventures of David Simple - Sarah Fielding
Favorite Nonfiction: A Prayer for the City - Buzz Bissinger

Happy birthday Jesus...

2010-12-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas Happy Holidays and Welcome Yule!

Music Mix Friday...Twas the Night Before Christmas "Even a Miracle Needs a Hand"

2010-12-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite of the classic Christmas Specials. My sister the Medieval scholar and her boyfriend Albert Einstein joined me last night to watch our old tape of all the Christmas specials (Micky's Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, etc.). To be honest, I am as equally excited to watch that tape for the old commercials as I am for the shows themselves. They had some excellent McDonald's and 7-Up commercials that year...

Just a little bit more...

2010-12-16T11:55:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I've already said I'm going to end up driving myself bananas by the end of next year with all the challenges I'm not going to finish. But I just can't help myself. So here are two more...

First up will be the annual TBR Challenge. This is always one I like. There are basically no requirements for the books (other than being on your TBR list for at least a year), so I just use it as a way to plug through the next 12 books on my oh-so-many TBR lists. This year my books will be...

1. The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde (completed 3/23/2011)
2. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro (completed 2/26/2011)
3. Slow Man - JM Coetzee (quit 4/30/2011)
4. Bombay Time - Thrity Umrigar (completed 8/14/2011)
5. Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans
6. I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy (completed 8/9/2011)
7. The Blue Star - Tony Early
8. Money - Martin Amis
9. The Sea - John Banville
10. Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
11. Agape Agape - William Gaddis
12. The Glass of Time - Michael Cox

And the second challenge, similar to TBR, is the Reading From My Shelves Challeng e. This involves reading books that are languishing on your shelves. You're supposed to then give the books away, but I only ever give away books I don't like. I've always been a re-reader of books I like. This is a good challenge for me, too. I get books for Chirstmas or my birthday and I always push back reading them in favor of the books that are part of the challenges that I've joined. And even when the books on my shelf are part of the challenges, I often push them back in favor of library books because there's a time limit on those and ones I own can be read anytime. So, despite how much I want the books I own, it's often a year or two after I get them that I actually get around to reading them. Which is weird, I guess. Anyway, I currently have ten books on my shelf that are unread, so those are the ten that will be in the challenge. Sadly it's not twelve books. I like challenges that can be easily divided into months. But Christmas is coming, so maybe I'll be able to add a few more books to the shelf that need to be read. Anyway, my books are...

1. Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler
2. Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysmans
3. Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire
4. La Mort d'Arthur - Thomas Malory
5. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan
6. The Revolt of the Eaglets - Jean Plaidy
7. The Heart of the Lion - Jean Plaidy
8. The Maiden of the White Hands - Rosalind Miles
9. When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman
10. Dragonwyck - Anya Seton

ETA...I was right about Christmas. I'll add two more books to the challenge to have a nice round 12 books in 12 months...

11. The White Queen - Philippa Gregory
12. Enduring Love - Ian McEwan

I'll try to say this is the last of my 2011 challenges, but that's probably a lie...

Christmas is coming...

2010-12-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

Today is my day on the Virtual Advent Tour. Last year I decided to tell everyone about my family's tradition of going to see the Christmas Revels every December. Of course we're going again this year, and for anyone who's curious, this year's theme (at least for the Puget Sound Revels) is Victorian England which should be a lot of fun. However, the Revels is not what I wanted to share with you this year.

This year, I wanted to talk about The Nutcracker. I am big fan of ballet, having taken lessons from age 5 to 18. I stopped after I graduated high school, and while I don't do it anymore I still love watching. During my years of dancing, I performed in the Nutcracker 5 times, once when I was little and during all four years of high school. I've performed as a gumdrop, a flower, a snowflake (three times), a Russian, a Chinese, a Spanish, and even the Rat King. Of the four scenes in the show, the only one I never danced in was the party scene. The dance everyone seems to know and like the best is the Russian Dance, so here's a video (definitely not of me).

One thing I've always loved about ballet is the tradition of it. By that, I mean, while you can go and see new pieces being performed all the time by professional companies, there are some things that are always the same. If you go see Swan Lake or Giselle, there are certain famous pieces where they choreography has remained practically unchanged from the original choreography. The Nutcracker is the same, there are certain traditions I really like. I like that Mother Ginger (or Marshmallow) is most of the time played by a man and she runs around stage trying to keep her little babies hidden under her skirts. I especially like the four "country dances" and seeing those countries represented in costume. Sadly...I live in Seattle. And while we have a wonderful ballet company with a world famous Nutcracker, partly due to the fact that the sets including a huge animatronic Rat King were designed by Maurice Sendak (of Where the Wild Things Are), it's not The Nutcracker I know and love. The music is out of order, the country dances are interpreted very weirdly, and they don't even have a Sugar Plum Fairy. But that is okay because other people love it and it's adding to their Christmases just like it added to mine.

Last thing I want to mention. The Nutcracker will always make me think of Christmas. I love hearing the music, I love the story (even though my sister, the librarian, likes to tell me how wrong the ballet is when compared to the actual story by ETA Hoffmann), but it has a specail place in my heart for another reason. December 5, 1999 was closing night of my first year dancing the Nutcracker with the studio I danced with during

high school. I was a freshman in high school and wasn't part of the company yet (those were the advanced dancers), but would be within the next year. I sort of knew this one girl (Betty) who was part of the company. We went to rival schools, and from the little we knew of each other we didn't like each other much. We had dressing areas that were next to each other backstage, so this last night of the Nutcracker we finally ended up talking to each other. Now here it is, December 5, 2010, and though she lives in Hollywood now and I'm in still in Seattle, I just got a text message from my best friend wishing me a happy 11 year anniversary. Here we are in the picture...apparently we're saving the environment.

Super freak...

2010-12-05T10:56:00.000-08:00

I recognize that I'm probably setting myself up for an End of 2011 Freak-out, and I just don't care. I'm signing up for more challenges anyway.

Today's post is brought to you by way of South Asia! S. Krishna's Books is once again hosting the South Asian Challenge and I'm signing up this year. As I said, I realize I'm slowly making myself go bananas, so I'm choosing to take it slow and only be a South Asian Wanderer, which means reading three books. S. Krishna has a provided a list of countries that qualify as South Asian countries, but instead of choosing three different countries to visit I am just planning on focusing on India. My books will be...

1. One Amazing Thing - Chitra Banejee Devakaruni
2. Bombay Time - Thrity Umrigar
3. The Marriage Bureau for Rich People - Farahad Zama

Music Mix Friday...Marina and the Diamonds "Oh No"

2010-12-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I did a Music Mix Friday. Marina will bring us back...

By the end of December...

2010-12-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

And now it's December. I definitely got some books completed in November (I really thought I was just going to plow through stuff after how quickly I went through the first two books of the month), but not as much as I needed to. I've had to make peace with the challenges I'm probably not going to finish. I know I'll get through the Wilkie Collins and French Revolution Mini Challenges (it would be embarrassing not to), and I might could eke out the Year of the Historical Challenge, but TBR and the Books to Read Before I Die are done for. Maybe next year...

But there's still a month left, and there are still books to go...

To be Read by the End of December
~~No Name - Wilkie Collins~~
The Heretic's Daughter - Kathleen Kent
Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini
Dragonwyck - Anya Seton
When Christ and His Saints Slept - Sharon Kay Penman

And soon it will be 2011...

To be read...

2010-12-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

Barney's Version - Mordecai Richler
Dance, Dance, Dance - Haruki Murakami
The Passionate Brood - Margaret Campbell Barnes
Life Sentences - Laura Lippman
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost - Rachel Manija Brown
Wishin and Hopin - Wally Lamb
The Hundred Foot Jouney - Richard C Morais
The Wedding Shroud - Elizabeth Storrs
The Greenlanders - Jane Smiley
Last Night in Montreal - Emily St. John Mandel
The Rinaldi Quartet - Paul Adam (first in a series)
The Emperor's Tomb - Steve Berry (first in a series)

10 new books and 2 new series.

More big plans...

2010-11-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

The end of the year is such a happy time because I can kind of ignore the fact that I'm so behind on challenges this year and just look towards all the beautiful challenges I ~~probably won't~~ JUST KNOW I'll finish next year. With that in mind, here are two more challenges...

This is the third time I've participated in the What's in a Name Challenge. I finished it this year, though not last year. I enjoy going through my outlandish TBR list and fitting books into the WiaN categories. For this challenge, read 6 books during 2011. Each title must meet a specific requirement. My books will be...

1. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (number)
2. The Diamond - Julie Baumgold (jewelry or gemstone)
3. Small Wars - Sadie Jones (size)
4. The Walking People - Mary Beth Keane (travel or movement)
5. On Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (evil)
6. Child of the Morning - Pauline Gedge (life stage)

The other challenge I'm joining today is the 2011 Global Challenge. Read books in 2011 that are all set on different continents. There are different levels for this challenge, and I'm choosing the easy level: one book set on each of the six inhabited continents and one set on a "seventh continent" which could be Antarctica but could also be space or the sea or a fantasy realm. My books will be...

1. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall - MG Vassanji (Africa - Kenya)
2. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro (Asia - Japan)
3. Pobby and Dingan - Ben Rice (Australasia - Australia)
4. Small Wars - Sadie Jones (Europe - Cyprus)
5. The Day the Falls Stood Still - Cathy Marie Buchanan (North America - Canada)
6. Red April - Santiago Roncagliolo (South America - Peru)
7. The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde (7th Continent - though this is kind of set in England, it's weird alternative nursery land England)

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2010-11-30T10:25:00.000-08:00

No Name
Combe-Raven House
West Somersetshire, England, 1846

Candide - Voltaire

2010-11-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

candide voltaire
c. 1759
78 pages
completed 11/28/2010

read for: HSTEU302 (modern european history 1648-1815), penguin classics, 1001 books

*may contain spoilers*

In the land of Westphalia, in the castle of the Baron of Thunder-ten-Tronckh, lived a youth endowed by nature with the gentlest of characters.

Candide, the bastard nephew of a baron on Westphalia, grows up studying under the tutelage of Dr. Pangloss. Pangloss is a firm believer in the theories of Leibniz, a German philosopher who poses a theory of optimism, that the world we live in is the best possible world. After engaging in sexual relations with the baron's daughter, Candide is driven from his home. This leads Candide on a journey across Europe, the Americas, and eventually the Ottoman Empire where a series of misfortunes causes Candide to seriously question the teachings of Pangloss and the theories of Leibniz.

I think this book could easily not be enjoyed without knowing the context in which it was written. I remember trying to read this before, but I didn't really know what it was trying to say since I didn't know what was going on historically in Europe at the time. I didn't even make it halfway though, which is sad considering the books is ONLY 78 PAGES LONG. Since I'm now reading it in my European history class, I was able to go through it pretty quick and appreciate it for what it really was, Voltaire's rebuttal to Leibniz's philosophy of optimism. Voltaire used this satire in order to write a social commentary on the state of the world at the time and the amount of suffering people go through on a daily basis at the hands of others as well as nature itself.

Without knowing the historical context, this book can be both pretty boring and horrific (for a comedy, there's a lot of rape and execution going on). Even knowing and appreciating the historical aspect of the book didn't make it a great read for me. While I enjoy history and was glad that I was able to know exactly what Voltaire was referring to in some of his more veiled metaphors, I don't really do philosophy. I don't really care if Voltaire thinks the amount of suffering within the world proves that there's no way this is the best possible world. But I read it, and I'm glad I did (seeing as I had to write a paper on it).

3/5

Preparations for what's next...

2010-11-22T10:10:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about the end of the year is making plans for the next year. I get to do a lot of that when it comes to my book blog since this is the time that people are putting out all their sign-ups for next years challenges. Last year I ended up quitting all my challenges, but I've done better this year (and by that I mean I actually have finished one). I've had my feelers out and I'm gearing up for next year. Here are my first two challenges for 2011...

I Want More Challenge...read books written by authors you've read once before and just need more of. I have an ongoing list of books that I've read that have made me want to read more by a certain author which is great for this challenge. I'm choosing the second level of participation: give me more, in which I need to read 5-8 books. I like round numbers, so I'm planning on reading 6 books (6 being a round number for how well it corresponds to 12 months of reading time). My books will be...

1. On Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The Improper Life of Bezelia Grove - Susan Gregg Gilmore
3. The Know-it-All - AJ Jacobs
4. The Scent of Rain and Lightning - Nancy Pickard
5. Theft: a Love Story - Peter Carey
6. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro

Challenge number two is Back to the Classics...read 8 classics. There's a bit of a catch though, as each classic has to fit one certain parameter. But I think that makes things a little more diverse so that's good. My books will be...

1. Lady Chatterly's Lover - DH Lawrence (banned book)
2. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (wartime: Waterloo and the June Rebellion - seeing as I've known all the words to the musical since I was seven, it's surprising that I've never even tried to read this...)
3. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (pulitzer prize winner - also surprising I've never read this considering I wrote my final paper for my 12th grade AP English class on it...)
4. Are You There God, it's Me Margaret? - Judy Blume (childrens/YA classic - maybe this is pushing it a little, but when I think of classic YA lit, Judy Blume is what immediately springs to mind even though I somehow managed to never read anything by her...)
5. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitsgerald (20th century classic)
6. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (19th century classic)
7. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (21st century classic - this is a little hard to predict, but all I've heard of this has made it seem like it could well be on it's way to classic-dom...)
8. Catch-22: Joseph Heller (reread from a highschool or college English class - I didn't actually finish this so only half of it will be a reread...)

I'm looking forward to 2011!!!

A state of abandonment...

2010-11-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

It's kinda getting old that I keep moaning about the problems I've been having with books the past few months. I'm not sure what the exact problem is, but I keep picking stuff up and very quickly realizing NOPE, there's no way I want to finish this. It's not even that I'm reading bad books. A lot of the ones I've been trying are actually really good books, critically acclaimed good books, they're just not doing it for me. I don't like abandoning books, especially when it's not because the book just blows. But at the same time, I don't want to just keep plodding through books that are just bogging me down. When I do that I end up just quitting books in general. So I'm not going to feel bad any more about abandoning books I don't like. If I'm bored or can't tell you what I think the story is supposed to be about within the first fifty pages (yes, down for my previous goal of 100) I'm done. Yeah last seven weeks of the year!!!!

The wrap up...

2010-11-14T15:07:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I completed a challenge, so YEA FOR ME! I did have to make a change from my initial list since I couldn't get my hands on a copy of one of the books I was planning to read, but other than that there were very few problems. I didn't quit on any of the books, which is something of a problem for me this year. I keep trying to read books that are not for me. That's not a good idea. That makes me hate reading and go into reading/blogging hiatuses. But not this challenge! My books were...

1. Sir Percy Leads the Band - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 4/5
2. The Whisky Rebels - David Liss 4/5
3. The Last Queen - CW Gortner 5/5
4. Like Mayflies in the Stream - Shauna Roberts 3/5
5. Peony in Love - Lisa See 4/5
6. Looking for Alaska - John Green 4/5

Wow. Unusually, not only did I finish everything, I more or less liked everything. Way to go, Challenge!

Looking for Alaska - John Green

2010-11-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

looking for alaska
john green
c. 2005
221 pages
completed 11/7/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge

*may contain spoilers*

The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party.

Miles has decided to leave home and family in Florida in favor of boarding school in Alabama, searching for, in the words of Francois Rabelais, The Great Perhaps. At Culver Creek school he finds friends and adventure, something other than the books of famous last words that were his only comfort at home. But just like Miles, there's more to his new friends than initially meets the eye and in the aftermath of a huge incident in the middle of the school year, Miles has a hard time understanding exactly who these new friends are.

I don't often read a lot of young adult novels anymore. For one thing, at 25 I'm not exactly their target market. But more than that, I sometimes think they try too hard. Before I continue, I realize I'm making a wide generalization. I'm not really talking about young adult genre novels, but books that are just marketed as YOUNG ADULT FICTION, stuff that is supposed to be literary fiction for a younger audience. And even then I know I shouldn't generalize like this, but I'm going to anyway. I'm off-put by young adult books because they always seem to have to be ABOUT SOMETHING. They're about bullying, or teen dating violence, or anorexia, or drug abuse. They can't just be about life, they have to talk about some kind of hot button issue within the teen world. I'm sure I'm being unfair, but that is the way I see YA being marketed anymore. And not to say that those issues shouldn't be addressed in literature, but sometimes a book that's solely about one of those things can get a little bogged down in the one issue. I feel this same way about adult literature such as "cancer books," "grief books," and "middle aged women un-fullfilled in their marriages books."

With all those pre-conceived notions in my mind, I was a little apprehensive going into this but I ended up really liking it. I think there was definite potential for this to become an "issue book" with messages of the evils of self destruction and drunk driving oozing off every page, but instead those issues were seamlessly incorporated into regular kid life. In fact, with most big issue books (YA or otherwise) it's almost impossible to go into the book with no idea what the issue is. You know going in it's a book about bullies or cancer or domestic abuse, etc. With this book, when the incident happened I was shocked. It's so much better to read something shocking when you don't know going in it's going to happen.

One thing I really appreciated was that the group of friends Miles found himself in the middle of weren't on an extreme of the social scale. Instead, the characters felt very real. They were funny and stupid and talked pretentiously about subjects they didn't fully understand yet, just like regular kids. I think too often teens are depicted (and at this point I'm talking about movies and TV and everything) as either the most popular kids in school or total losers. There are never any average kids anymore. These kids were just average kids and they weren't struggling to improve their social standing. They had found their niche and were happy with the people that surrounded them.

I know I've done a lot of ripping on YA books in this post, and like I said above I'm sure that some of what I've said isn't fair. This book hasn't changed my mind or anything. I'll still probably steer clear from what I see as "issue books," and maybe I'll be missing out on some good things, but that's okay. Other people are able to appreciate them more than I do, so those are the poeple who should be reading them.

4/5

Peony in Love - Lisa See

2010-11-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

peony in love
lisa see
c. 2007
273 pages
completed 11/6/2010

read for: what's in a name challenge, year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

Two days before my sixteenth birthday, I woke up so early that my maid was still asleep on the floor at the foot of my bed.

In seventeenth century China, after the invasion of the Manchus, Peony is about to turn sixteen. During her birthday celebration, when she is privileged with the extremely rare experience of witnessing a performance of the famous opera The Peony Pavilion, Peony accidentally meets a man and instantly falls in love. Knowing she is already betrothed and very soon to be married, Peony tries to cherish her few stolen moments with her stranger, taking to writing a detailed commentary on the text of The Peony Pavilion. So obsessed with her project and her doomed love for her stranger, Peony's life begins to mirror the life of Liniang, the heroine of The Peony Pavilion, and she soon succumbs to "lovesickness" and dies before her wedding. Now a ghost trying to navigate the afterworld, Peony must watch and nudge her betrothed's next two wives to complete her project and help her find peace as an ancestor. Peony in Love is based on the actual events that led to the writing and publishing of The Three Wives' Commentary on the Peony Pavilion, one of the first books of its kind written by women.

I am not entirely sure what happened, but somehow in the past months I've gone into a major anti-reading funk. October was ridiculous in my lack of motivation to read anything. It took me a month and a half to start and discard only two books. So yea for this one for holding my attention the whole way through.

I enjoyed Peony in Love much more than I enjoyed See's earlier novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. I felt Snow Flower's story kind of sputtered a lot, like there was a lot of start and stop. With Peony, however, I felt there to be a much more consistent flow, and I was equally intrigued by the story and the wealth of information regarding seventeenth century Chinese history, custom, and beliefs of the afterworld. I remember being annoyed by aspects of Snow Flower's story, but really enjoying the cultural information. In Peony I found both facets to be extremely compelling. Particularly, I was really interested in the ideas of the ghosts and spirits of the afterworld. Some of the beliefs seem so bizarre and arbitrary to me (as I'm sure my own beliefs would seem to someone who had been raised with this knowledge of Chinese ghosts). I especially liked the notion that Chinese ghosts can't make sharp turns. As such, zigzag bridges were apparently built all over China to keep ghosts from being able to enter and haunt the villages.

To be completely honest, the fact that Peony's stranger and Peony's betrothed husband turned out to be the same person annoyed me. Actually, no, that's not true. I probably could have gotten behind that. What annoyed me was how quickly I realized they were the same person, but how it took Peony until she was basically dead to come to the same realization. So really, I was annoyed with Peony because if she'd just opened her eyes a little bit she could have been happy. But I guess that's the point. She is kind of blind and childish in the beginning, but through her journey she becomes enlightened.

Two things I wanted to mention...

First, I found it extremely fascinating the way anorexia in this story was seen as "lovesickness." Whether or not Peony actually fell in love with Wu Ren in that initial meeting, which I'm not one hundred percent sure she could have in so short a time, it did awaken a realization of her complete lack of control in her own life and destiny. This was probably the same with the other lovesick maidens. Like the doctor in the story claimed, their access to The Peony Pavilion was in some ways dangerous as it portrayed a woman who was able to choose her own destiny, something these women who were reading it (and in extremely rare cases, seeing and hearing it) were in no way able to do, and it gave them a desperate and ultimately fatal yearning for a life they couldn't have. Just like many modern people who suffer from anorexia, Peony's mania for her project and her refusal to eat were ways to exert some sort of control on her life. Please keep in mind as a disclaimer, though I can objectively see how The Peony Pavilion could have played a role in the deaths of these lovesick maidens during this time in Chinese history, I in no way agree with the doctor and other men in this story who used this phenomenon as an example of why women should be kept illiterate and uneducated. Let's advocate education for everyone.

Second, I am extremely impressed with Lisa See's ability to include detailed information about certain Chinese customs in such a neutral and unbiased way. While the process and the dangers of foot binding, for example, are in no way sugar coated (especially in Snow Flower where the entire procedure is described in excruciating detail), they are also not simply dismissed and demonized to perhaps appease a Western audience. Instead, perfectly bound feet are portrayed as a mother's greatest display of love for her daughter. While I, as a contemporary American, can read about that process and feel it to be unnecessarily dangerous and torturous, Lisa See leaves that opinion entirely up to me to come to on my own and leaves Peony and her family's opinions of foot binding as historically accurate as possible. I found that extremely well done.

I always like it when something I read makes me interested in reading something else. I've now acquired a copy of The Peony Pavilion and am excited to read it, though I don't think there's any easy way for me to get my hands on a copy of The Three Wives' Commentary. Sometimes, though, I'm more excited to learn about specific historical texts than I am to actually read them. We'll see how this goes.

4/5

By the end of November...

2010-11-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so the wheels have really fallen off the wagon, so to speak. I read next to nothing last month (except school related things). I barely made it through 100 pages of one book. That was it. Not only that, but I didn't go on my blog or anyone else's in that whole time either. Which is why there is no post of all the awesome books added to my TBR pile last month. There weren't any. I'm not sure what the deal is. I could say I was getting back in the swing of school after summer break, but let's be for real...I only have class three days a week. So, like I say every month, let's try this again and maybe this month will be different...

To be Read by the End of November
~~Peony in Love - Lisa See~~
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysman
~~Looking for Alaska - John Green~~
The Heretic's Daughter - Kathleen Kent
Mudbound - Hillary Jordan
No Name - Wilkie Collins

Check back next month to see if I actually finish something...

By the end of October...

2010-10-01T20:15:00.000-07:00

So the reading hasn't been going so well the past few months. I make great plans, but then they all fall apart. I wish I could give a good reason for the lack of reading, like I was off having awesome adventures or running from the law. Unfortunately, my lack of reading probably stems from the fact that I just watched the first five seasons of Bones from the beginning (hence the new TV boyfriend). Maybe this month will be different? Somehow I doubt it...

To be Read by the End of October
Possesion - AS Byatt
No Name - Wilkie Collins
The Well and the Mine - Gin Phillips
Beloved - Toni Morrison
Mudbound - Hillary Jordan
Against Nature - Jori-Karl Huysman
The Heretics Daughter - Kathleen Kent
Looking for Alaska - John Green

Yikes. Things might be starting to unravel...

To be read...

2010-10-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
What Was Lost - Catherine O'Flynn
Burnt Shadows - Kamila Shamsie
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives - Lola Shoneyin
I'd Know You Anywhere - Laura Lipmann
Numb - Sean Farrell
The Report - Jessica Francis Kane
The Lacquer Lady - F Tennyson Jesse
The Rising Tide - Molly Keane
The Factory Voice - Jeanette Lynes
Mr. Rosenblum's List - Natasha Solomons
Queenmaker - India Edghill
Fall of Giants - Ken Follett
Notchan - Natsume Soseki
Russian Winter - Daphne Kalotay
Cut to the Quick - Kate Ross
The Gods Will Have Blood - Anatole France
Palace Walk - Naquib Mahfouz
Broken For You - Stephanie Kallos
The Edwardians - Vita Sackville-West
Mrs. Ames - EF Benson
Where the River Narrows - Aimee Laberge
Lady of the Butterflies - Fiona Mountain
What Alive Knew - Paula Marantz
Cohen The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell
Ballad of the Whisky Robber - Julian Rubinstein
Veil of Lies - Jeri Westerson
A Separate Country - Robert Hicks
The Wind Seller - Rachel Preston
The Sky is Falling - Caroline Adderson
The Crossing Places - Elly Griffiths (1st in a series)
A Tattoo Shop Mystery - Karen E Olson (series)
Night Soldiers - Alan Furst (series)

30 new books and 3 new series.

Music Mix Friday... Jay and the Americans "Come a Little Bit Closer"

2010-09-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

So the quality's not great since this video looks OLD, but I love this song. And all the sombreros.

On Beauty - Zadie Smith

2010-09-14T12:30:00.001-07:00

on beauty
zadie smith
c. 2005
443 pages
completed 9/9/2010

read for: before i die challenge, 1001 books, EW new classics

*may contain spoilers*

One may as well begin with Jerome's emails to his father.

Howard, a white British art history professor, is trying to make things right with his African American wife Kiki after she catches him in an affair. Their three children, Levi who is still in high school and Jerome and Zora who are attending college, are all trying to make sense of the world around them and their place in it.

I'm finding it really difficult to give a decent synopsis of this book. There was a lot going on. Each of the five family members had their own personal story taking place. And sometimes there were other people's stories thrown into the mix just for good measure. So it could take me a long time to really describe the basic plot. Instead, I will just say, thematically I think this books centers around discovering how you identify yourself and how that identity may clash with family. For example, Levi, the youngest child, identifies very strongly as African American. To Levi, being black is equal to being urban, unintellectual, and "street." Despite being raised in the suburbs in a intellectual household, Levi uses what he describes as street language as a way to connect with his heritage. His older siblings, though African American through their mother, were both born in England and don't have this same pull to be "black" the way Levi does.

Severe differences within the family led to a very difficult family dynamic. They were each on such different ends of all kinds of spectrums: white vs. black, British vs. American, intellectual vs. plebeian, religious vs. secular, artistic vs. realistic, among others. At times it really seemed like these people didn't know each other at all. The relationship between Levi and Howard was especially awkward to witness. They had absolutely nothing to say to each other. This leads me away from describing the book into talking about what I thought of it...

While thematically it was interesting, I hated every single character. This was a family who claimed to love each other and yet I could not get passed the complete disrespect they all displayed toward each other. I couldn't get behind any of the choices any of them made especially Howard. I find it hard to like a book when I don't like any of the people.

I also had trouble with the gaps in the story. By that I mean, an episode of the story would be happening, conflict would arise, and just when it looks like we're getting to the climax of the action, the chapter would end kind of cliffhanger-like and the next chapter would start several weeks or months later already well into the aftermath. I would have liked to have seen how things actually played out. And sometimes the issues or debates just petered out instead of coming to any kind of conclusion. For example, there is a major debate throughout the college Howard teaches at regarding "discretionaries" (underprivileged people not enrolled at the school but who are found by professors to show extraordinary promise in their field and who are then allowed to take class). Howard is for discretionaries, his professional rival is not. A lot of time is spent setting up this issue, but then instead of addressing it and coming to any kind of conclusion, something happens to make Howard's rival's opinion moot and so the whole thing just blows over. Also from the tone of the book, I think I come down on the wrong side of the debate.

I was interested in the themes and the story, but it kind of fell short for me. I wish I could have cared about any of the characters.

3/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2010-09-14T12:25:00.000-07:00

The Known World
Manchester County, Virginia 1841

Music Mix Friday... Bonnie Tyler "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

2010-09-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

Been stuck in my head for days...kind of epic..

Even more epic is the literal video version, but youtube won't let me embed that one. Sad face. :(

Movie Mondays...

2010-09-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

Small disclaimer...part of this post may be discussing something slightly less than classy.

Okay, I tried to start talking about the movies I've been watching, but after only two weeks I kinda got out of the groove. Since then I've been watching quite a wide variety of movies, so let's start again! Just a few days ago, my sister the literature scholar, her boyfriend Albert Einstein, and I went and saw Scott Pilgrim. Surprise, surprise (not really) it was really funny. Very quippy with lots of pop culture references (which I love). The way it was stylized was hilarious, all like a big giant video game. Just about anything Jason Schwartzman is in I want to see. I've heard some complaints that it'll end up a cult film since anyone older than 25 won't get the video game jokes and that it's too hipster-ish (I did feel like I needed to be wearing black rimmed glasses and some skinny jeans in order to fully appreciate the movie), but I think that's crap. It's just fun.

Also a really cute movie was Happy-go-Lucky. Mainly a slice of life movie (I like that phrase) about a woman named Poppy who is infectiously happy and who decides to finally get her drivers license when her bike is stolen. I think Poppy can pretty much be summed up by the scene when she discovers her bike has been stolen. Her only concern was that she didn't get to say good-bye. How cute is that? Okay, to be honest, Poppy's overly happy attitude could get a little annoying at times. She didn't seem to take anything seriously (though I think she really did, she just couldn't get that across to anyone else) and she didn't really seem to understand personal space. But in the end I couldn't help but admire her attitude. And watching her try to flamenco dance was pretty funny.

A few weeks ago, both my sisters and my mother and I went and saw Inception and let me tell you, it is pretty epic. And this movie could have gone either way for me. I am not often one to enjoy science fiction/fantasy. But this I could get behind. I have a mental list of things I don't like in movies (a list my sisters enjoy making fun of) which mostly involves science fiction/fantasy elements and this movie managed not to really use any of these things (such as space, aliens, the future, technology, Angelina Jolie, dinosaurs, robots, etc). And this movie provided me with a new imaginary boyfriend in the form of Tom Hardy (who played Eames). Eames was kind of fabulous. He totally thought he was fly, what with the linen suits and the pink shirts and the loafers with no socks and the pinky ring. I may have actually made up the pinky ring. Anyway, this love for my new imaginary boyfriend is shared by my sister the librarian and we have been watching lots of old movies of his in the past few weeks such as...

What did I learn from watching these movies and clips of others (like RocknRolla, Stuart: A Life Backwards, and Scenes of a Sexual Nature)? Dude likes to get nekkid!* I am not even kidding. And that's not something you get too often in American movies. Naked women? No problem. Just not dudes. British movies (or at least the ones this guy gravitates towards) are quite another story. So there I was, trying to watch a really weird prison movie (Bronson), and all of a sudden...JUNK ATTACK. And not just one shot and then we're done. No, dude was stark naked, greased down, and fighting prison guards, something like three different times during the movie. So let's just say, things were moving around a bit. Despite the amount of junk seen, this ended up being a pretty good (albeit extremely darkly funny and really weird) movie. Kind of A Clockwork Orange meets Chicago the musical.

To continue with the theme of the junk attack, and in an effort to completely contradict what I just said about this not happening so much in American movies, I also watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall this past week. I am a little ashamed to admit I watched this, seeing as I have a strong hatred for basically anything associated with Judd Apatow. He seems to think that all men are just man-children who have poor hygiene skills and are only interested in smoking pot and getting laid, and that all women are uptight shrews who just need one of these man-children to show them have to cut loose and let their freak flag fly. Anyway, I watched this solely because I really like the show How I Met Your Mother and Marshall from that show wrote this movie. And okay, it was kind of funny. There were a few too many man-children for me, but at least the character of Rachel wasn't a terror (even if Sarah Marshall kind of was). I attribute this to the fact that Judd Apatow only produced this and didn't write or direct it.

*naked means you have no clothes on...nekkid means you have no clothes on and you up to something.

Music Mix Friday... LeeAnn Womack "I'll Think of a Reason Later"

2010-09-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

My ex-boyfriend is getting married tomorrow. I am feeling petulant. Also, I couldn't find a real video for this song. However, I do like Disney, so this works for me.

Cleopatra's Daughter - Michelle Moran

2010-09-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

cleopatra's daughter
michelle moran
c. 2009
411 pages
completed 8/29/2010

read for: year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

While we waited for news to arrive, we played dice.

News quickly did arrive, news of Egyptian defeat and the suicide of Marc Antony. As Octavian and his Roman army invaded Queen Kleopatra's Alexandrian palace, she followed her husband's example and committed suicide herself, leaving her eleven year old twins, Alexander and Selene, at the mercy of Rome. While at first paraded through the streets of Rome in chains to celebrate Octavian's triumph over Antony and Kleopatra, the twins soon find themselves treated as honored royal guests, living with Octavian's sister Octavia, and becoming fast friends with the children of both Octavian and Octavia. Though day to day life seems easy, the twins know their fate is in the hands of Octavian, a man who may decide at any moment that they are a threat to his rule.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book. Michelle Moran's Egyptian historical fiction has been really popular in the past few years, but this is the first one I read, so I cannot comment on how it compares. I can say that after reading this one I am looking forward to reading the others. Most of this book is set in Rome, anyway, so I'll be interested to see more Egyptian culture in the others.

It's funny, my sister the librarian and I were just talking last night about a specific problem that we have found in a lot of historical fiction that deals with real people. I also think I mentioned this in a review post earlier this year. Too often, I have found, the only historical figures that people seem to want to write about are tragic historical figures. So while the story is interesting, it's still kind of a downer. I, for one, refuse to believe that their are no people in the world who are both interesting and happy. They don't have to be happy all the time, I can be down with personal struggles and heartache, but every once in a while it would be great for a happy ending. Cleopatra's Daughter ends somewhat happily. There is love. And there is freedom. But there is also death and exile. So this come close to what I'm looking for, I guess, but it's not quite there.

I felt that Moran did a really good job of depicting, not just the events that were specific to the story of Alexander and Selene, but also events that really explained the political struggles that were going on in Rome at the time. Specifically, the two trials Selene witnessed, which were not sugar coated, and Moran's invention of the Red Eagle. Both trials horrified me. Octavian surely had his work cut out for him in keeping the peace in Rome.

There were a few things that irritated me throughout the book. Within the actual text of the novel, Kleopatra (both mother and daughter) is spelled with a K. Yet the title is spelled with a C. I don't know if one is more historically accurate, but I think it should have been consistent. I like consistency. Because there was no consistency between the book and the book title I was forced to be inconsistent in my post. Which makes me sad. There was also a lot of expository writing in the first few chapters. Like, a lot of Marcellus explaining Rome to Alexander and Selene when they first arrived. I can kind of look past that as Alexander and Selene were new to Rome and didn't know anything and at least there was a Q&A session between characters instead of just one big long descriptive paragraph/chapter, but at times it made me think of chapter two of every Babysitter's Club book where each character and the creation of the club is described in detail. I wish there had been a bit more discovering of Roman culture through the story and less through Marcellus' monologue.

A good read. Some parts were horrifying, but it was nicely balanced with universal adolescent concerns (first love, struggles with parents, etc).

4/5

By the end of September...

2010-09-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

The beginning of August looked like it was really going to be a productive month of reading. And then I started Oscar and Lucinda and the month kind of unraveled from there. Will September be any different????

To be Read by the End of September
~~On Beauty - Zadie Smith~~
The Known World - Edward P Jones
Possession - AS Byatt
No Name - Wilkie Collins
The Well and the Mine - Gin Phillips
Beloved - Toni Morrison

To be read...

2010-09-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Chatterton Square - EH Young
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet - David Mitchell
The King's Mistress - Emma Campion
Before the Fact - Francis Iles
Still Missing - Chevy Stevens
April and Oliver - Tess Callahan
Things Go Flying - Shari Lapena
Amandine - Marlena de Blasi
Never Wave Goodbye - Dave Magee
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise - Julia Stuart
The Good Daughters - Joyce Maynard
The Typist - Michael Knight
Day for Night - Frederick Reikan
Stranger Here Below - Joyce Hinnefield
Fauna - Alissa York
Curtains - Tom Jokinen
Skippy Dies - Paul Murray
Juliet - Anne Fortier
Rich Boy - Sharon Pomerantz
Shinju - Laura Joh Rowland
Henrietta's War - Joyce Dennys
In the Shadow of the Cyprus - Thomas Steinbeck
Fragile - Lisa Unger
The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove - Susan Gregg Gilmore
The Rembrant Affair - Daniel Silva
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox - Maggie O'Farrell
The Raven and the Wolf - Christopher Spellman
The Countess and the King - Susan Holloway Scott
The Circus in Winter - Cathy Day
Poison - Sarah Poole
The Blind Contessa's New Machine - Carey Wallace
Coventry - Helen Humphries
The Devil of Nanking - Mo Hayden
Woman: An Intimate Geography - Natalie Angier
The Irrisistable Henry House - Lisa Grunwald

35 new books.

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2010-08-31T11:27:00.001-07:00

On Beauty Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2005

Projects for procrastination...

2010-08-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

I moved to a new apartment a few weeks ago. I am still unpacking. I've done all the big stuff and now it's just down to the little annoying stuff. I keep coming up with new projects to do to keep me from having to finish unpacking. Like today. While I already have on my blog the original 1001 Books to Read Before You Die, the list was updated again recently (like in March) so all those new books need to be added to the list.

1001 Books to Read Before You Die - 2008/2010 Update*

2000s
1. The Elegance of the Hedgehog - Muriel Barbery
2. The Children's Book - AS Byatt
3. Invisible - Paul Auster
4. American Rust - Philipp Meyer
5. Cost - Roxana Robinson
6. The White Tiger - Arayind Adiga
7. Home - Marilynne Robinson
8. Kieron Smith, boy - James Kelman
9. ~~The Gathering - Anne Enright~~
10. The Blind Side of the Heart - Julia Franck
11. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
12. Animal's People - Indra Sinha
13. Falling Man - Don DeLillo
14. The Reluctant Fundamentalist - Mohsin Hamid
15. ~~Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie~~
16. The Kindly Ones - Jonathan Littell
17. The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
18. Against the Day - Thomas Pynchon
19. Carry Me Down - MJ Hyland
20. Mother's Milk - Edward St. Aubyn
21. Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlmann
22. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian - Marina Lewycka
23. The Accidental - Ali Smith
24. The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
25. 2666 - Roberto Bolano
26. Small Island - Andrea Levy
27. The Book About Blanche and Marie - Per Olov Enquist
28. Suite Francaise - Irene Nemirovsky
29. The Swarm - Frank Schatzing
30. Your Face Tomorrow - Javier Marias
31. A Tale of Love and Darkness - Amos Oz
32. Lady Number Thirteen - Jose Carlos Somoza
33. The Successor - Ismail Kadare
34. Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre
35. The Namesake - Jhumpa Lahiri
36. Snow - Orhan Pamuk
37. Soldiers of Salamis - Javer Cercas
38. I'm Not Scared - Niccolo Ammaniti
39. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
40. Bartleby and Co. - Enrique Vila-Matas

1900s
41. The Museum of Unconditional Surrender - Dubravka Urgresic
42. In Search of Klingsor - Jorge Volpi
43. Pavel's Letters - Monika Maron
44. Savage Detectives - Roberto Bolano
45. Dirty Havana Trilogy - Pedro Juan Guitierrez
46. The Heretic - Miguel Deliber
47. Crossfire - Miyabe Miyuki
48. Money to Burn - Ricardo Piglia
49. Margot and the Angels - Kristien Hemmerechts
50. Fall on Your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonald
51. A Light Comedy - Eduardo Mendoza
52. Santa Evita - Tomas Eloy Martinez
53. The Late-Night News - Petros Markaris
54. Troubling Love - Elena Ferrante
55. Our Lady of Assassins - Fernando Vallejo
56. Deep River - Shusaku Endo
57. Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light - Ivan Klima
58. The Twins - Tessa de Loo
59. The Holder of the World - Bharati Mukherjee
60. Remembering Babylon - David Malouf
61. The Adventures and Misadventures of Magroll - Alvaro Mutis
62. Before Night Falls - Reinaldo Arenas
63. Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture - Apostolos Doxiadis
64. The Triple Mirror of the Self - Zulfikar Ghose
65. All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy
66. The Dumas Club - Arturo Perez-Reverte
67. Memoirs of Rain - Sunetra Gupta
68. Astradeni - Eugenia Fakinou
69. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankel
70. The Laws - Connie Palmen
71. The Daughter - Pavlos Matesis
72. The Shadow Lines - Amitay Ghosh
73. The Great Indian Novel - Shashi Tharoor
74. Inland - Gerald Murnane
75. Obabakoak - Bernando Atxaga
76. Gimmick! - Joost Zwagerman
77. Paradise of the Blind - Duong Thu Huong
78. The Last World - Christopher Ransmayr
79. The First Garden - Anne Herbert
80. Kitchen - Banana Yoshimoto
81. Black Box - Amos Oz
82. All Souls - Javier Marias
83. Of Love and Shadows - Isabel Allende
84. The Ballad for Georg Henig - Viktor Paskov
85. Memory of Fire - Eduardo Galeano
86. The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman - Szczypiorski
87. Ancestral Voices - Etienne van Heerden
88. Annie John - Jamaica Kincaid
89. Simon and the Oakes - Marianne Fredriksson
90. Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
91. Half of Man is Woman - Zhang Xianliang
92. Love Medicine - Louise Erdich
93. The Young Man - Botho Strauss
94. Democracy - Joan Didion
95. Larva: Midsummer Night's Babel - Julien Rios
96. Professor Martin's Departure - Jaan Kross
97. The Witness - Juan Jose Saer
98. Fado Alexandrino - Antoni Lobo Antunes
99. The Christmas Orotorio - Goran Tunstrom
100. Baltasar and Blimunda - Jose Saramago
101. The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa
102. Couples, Passerby - Botho Strauss
103. The War of the End of the World - Llosa
104. Leaden Wings - Zhang Jie
105. The House with the Blind Glass Windows - Wassmo
106. Smell of Sadness - Kossman
107. Clear Light of Day - Anita Desai
108. Southern Seas - Montalban
109. Fool's Gold - Douka
110. A Dry White Season - Andre Brink
111. So Long a Letter - Mariama Ba
112. The Back Room - Gaite
113. Requiem for a Dream - Selby
114. The Beggar Maid - Alice Munro
115. The Wars - Findley
116. Quartet in Autumn - Barbara Pym
117. The Engineer of Human Souls - Skvorscky
118. Almost Transparent Blue - Rhu Murakami
119. Kiss of the Spiderwoman - Manuel Puig
120. Blaming - Elizabeth Taylor
121. Woman at Point Zero - El Saadawi
122. The Year of the Hare - Paasilinna
123. The Commandment - Jessica Anderson
124. The Port - Solian
125. The Diviners - Margaret Laurence
126. The Dispossessed - Ursula K Le Guin
127. The Optimist's Daughter - Eudora Welty
128. The Twilight Years - Ariyoshi
129. Lives of Girls and Women - Alice Munro
130. Cataract - Osadchyi
131. A World for Julius - Echenique
132. Play It as It Lays - Joan Didian
133. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
134. Here's to You, Jesusa - Poniatowska
135. Season of Migration to the North - Salih
136. Heartbreak Tango - Manuel Puig
137. Moscow Stations - Erofeyey
138. The Case Worker - Konrad
139. Jacob the Liar - Becker
140. The Cathedral - Honchar
141. Day of the Dolphin - Robert Merle
142. The Manor - Isaac Bashevis Singer
143. Z - Vassilikos
144. Miramar - Mahfouz
145. Marks of Identity - Juan Goytisolo
146. To Each His Own - Sciascia
147. Silence - Shusaku Endo
148. Death and the Dervish - Selimovic
149. Garden, Ashes - Kis
150. Closely Watched Trains - Hrabal
151. Back to Oegstgeest - Wolkers
152. Three Trapped Tigers - Infante
153. Dog Years - Gunter Grass
154. The Third Wedding - Taktsis
155. The Time of the Hero - Llosa
156. The Death of Artemio Cruz - Fuentes
157. Time of Silence - Luis Martin Santos
158. Memoirs of a Peasant Boy - Vilos
159. No One Writes to the Colonel - Marquez
160. The Shipyard - Onetti
161. God's Bits of Wood - Sembene
162. Bebo's Girl - Cassola
163. Halftime - Martin Walser
164. The Magician of Lublin - Isaac Bashevis Singer
165. Down Second Avenue - Mphahlele
166. Deep Rivers - Arguedas
167. The Guide - Naravan
168. Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon - Jorge Amada
169. The Birds - Vesaas
170. The Deadbeats - Ruyslinck
171. The Manila Rope - Meri
172. The Glass Bees - Junger
173. The Devil to Pay in the Backlands - Rosa
174. The Tree of Man - Patrick White
175. The Burning Plain - Rulfo
176. The Unknown Soldier - Linna
177. The Sound of Waves - Mishima
178. Death in Rome - Koeppen
179. The Mandarins - de Beauvoir
180. A Day in Spring - Kasmac
181. The Dark Child - Laye
182. The Hothouse - Koeppen
183. The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier
184. A Thousand Cranes - Yasunari Kawabata
185. Excellent Women - Barbar Pym
186. The Hive - Camilo Jose Cela
187. Barabbas - Par Lagerkyist
188. The Guiltless - Hermann Broch
189. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen - Tadeusz Borowski
190. In the Heart of the Sea - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
191. Ashes and Diamonds - Jerzy Andrzejewski
192. Journey to the Alcarria - Camilo jose Cela
193. Froth on the Daydream - Boris Vian
194. Midaq Alley - Naguib Mahfouz
195. A House in the Uplands - Erskine Caldwell
196. Zorba the Greek - Nikos Kazantzakis
197. The Death of Virgil - Hermann Broch
198. Andrea - Carmen Laforet
199. The Tin Flute - Gabriella Roy
200. Bosnian Chronicle - Ivo Andric
201. Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren
202. Joseph and His Brothers - Thomas Mann
203. Chess Story - Stefan Zweig
204. The Harvesters - Cesare Parvese
205. Broad and Alien is the World - Ciro Alegria
206. The Man Who Loved Children - Christina Stead
207. On the Edge of Reason - Miroslav Krleza
208. Alamut - Vladimir Bartol
209. The Blind Owl - Sadeq Hedayat
210. Ferdydurke - Witold Grombowicz
211. Rickshaw Boy - Lao She
212. War with the Newts - Karel Capek
213. Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand
214. The Bells of Basel - Louis Aragon
215. On the Heights of Despair - Emil Cioran
216. The Street of Crocodiles - Bruno Schulz
217. Man's Fate - Andre Malraux
218. Cheese - Willem Elsschot
219. Viper's Tangle - Francois Mauriac
220. The Forbidden Realm - JJ Slauerhoff
221. The Return of Philip Latinowicz - Miroslav Krleza
222. Insatiability - Stanislaw Witkiwicz
223. Monica - Saunders Lewis
224. I Thought of Daisy - Edmund Wilson
225. Retreat Without Song - Shahan Shahnour
226. Some Prefer Nettles - Junichiro Tanizaki
227. The Case of Sergeant Grischa - Arnold Zweig
228. Alberta and Jacob - Cora Sandel
229. Under Satan's Sun - Bernanos
230. Chaka the Zulu - Thoms Mofolo
231. The New World - Welde Selasse
232. Kristin Lavransdatter - Sigrid Undset
233. The Forest of the Hanged - Liviu Rebreanu
234. Claudine's House - Colette
235. The Life of Christ - Papini
236. The Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger
237. The Home and the World - Robindranath Tagore
238. Pallieter - Felix Timmermans
239. The Underdogs - Mariano Azuela
240. Platero and I - Juan Ramon Jimenez
241. The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge - Ranier Maria Rilke
242. Solitude - Victor Catala
243. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
244. Memoirs of My Nervous Illness - Daniel P Schreber
245. The Call of the Wild - Jack London
246. None But the Brave - Arthur Schnitzler
247. Sandokan: The Tigers of Mompracem - Emilio Salgari

1800s
248. Eclipse of the Cresent Moon - Geza Gardonyi
249. Dom Casmurro - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
250. As a Man Grows Older - Italo Svevo
251. Pharoah - Boleslaw Prus
252. Compassion - Perez Galdos
253. The Viceroys - Frederico de Roberto
254. Down There - Joris-Karl Huysman
255. Thais - Anatole France
256. Eline Vere - Louis Couperus
257. The Child of Pleasure - Gabriele D'Annunzio
258. Under the Yoke - Ivan Vazov
259. The Manors of Ulloa - Emilia Pardo Bazan
260. The Quest - Frederik van Eeden
261. The Regent's Wife - Leopoldo Alas
262. The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
263. Martin Fierro - Jose Hernandez
264. The Crime of Father Amaro - Jose Maria de Eca de Queiros
265. Pepita Jimenez - Juan Valera
266. Indian Summer - Adalbert Stifter
267. Green Henry - Gottfried Keller
268. The Devil's Fool - George Sand
269. Facundo - Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
270. A Hero for Our Times - Mikhail Lermontov
271. Camera Obscura - Hildebrand
272. The Lion of Flanders - Hendrik Conscience
273. Eugene Onegin - Alexander Pushkin
274. The Life of a Good-for-Nothing - Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
275. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr - ETA Hoffman
276. Michael Kohlhaas - Heinrich von Kleist
277. Henry of Ofterdingen - Novalis

1700s
278. A Dream of Red Mansions - Cao Xueqin
279. Anton Reiser - Karl Phillip Moritz

Pre-1700s
280. The Adventurous Simplicissimus - Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen
281. The Conquest of New Spain - Bernal Diaz del Castillo
282. The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda - Miguel de Cervantes
283. Thomas of Reading - Thomas Deloney
284. Monkey: Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
285. The Lusiad - Luis Vaz de Camoes
286. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes - Anonymous
287. Amadis of Gaul - Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo
288. La Celestina - Fernando de Rojas
289. Tirant lo Blanc - Joanot Martorll and Marti Joan de Galba
290. The Water Margin - Shi Nai'an
291. Romance of the Three Kingdoms - Luo Guanzhong
292. The Tale of the Gengi - Murasaki Shikibu
293. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter - Anonymous

*This is a list only of the new additions

Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey

2010-08-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

oscar and lucinda
peter carey
c. 1988
432 pages
completed 8/24/2010

read for: before i die challenge, 100 greatest novels, 1001 books

*may contain spoilers*

If there was a bishop, my mother would have him to tea.

Oscar Hopkins, a nervous and fidgety clergyman, was born to an English Evangelical minister, but left him to study the Anglican faith. Lucinda Leplastrier, an overtly modern feminist, was an unwitting heiress to a large fortune after her beloved Australian farm was sold off piecemeal by an accountant following the death of her parents mere months before Lucinda came of age. These two oddballs, square pegs living in a world of round holes, were drawn together by a mutual obsession with gambling, a compulsion that would lead to the ultimate wager that, in 1865 Australia, would change the course of their lives forever.

It took me a really long time to get through this book. I have a really frustrating issue with reading. No matter how much I am enjoying the story, the act of reading always makes me sleepy. I have no idea why! Because of this I often have to read in fairly small increments, no more than like 20-25 pages in one sitting. This can really make for slow going. And then, the longer the book is taking, the more frustrated I get. I wish I could figure out some way to not get so sleepy when I read.

To be completely honest, this was kind of a bizarre love story. Every single character, especially Oscar and Lucinda, were complete oddities. I couldn't help but laugh at the situations they would get themselves into, but then it would immediately become clear that they often had no idea how odd they were so while I was still laughing my heart would be breaking. These people were all equal parts hilarious and depressing. Which I guess was mirrored in the whole book itself. Equal parts hilarious and depressing. The best way I can think of to describe the tone of this book is quirky. Like I said, all the characters were total weirdos. This made certain characters, like Ian Wardley-Fish, totally endearing, and at the same time made other characters, like Mr. Jefferies, completely detestable. But it wasn't just the characters that were quirky, but the tone of the writing itself, its descriptions of places and people. For example, my favorite description of anyone in the novel, "Theophilius Hopkins was a moderately famous man. You can look him up in the 1860 Britannica. There are three full columns about his corals and his corallines, his anemones and starfish. It does not have anything very useful about the man. It does not tell you what he was like. You can read it three times over and never guess that he had any particular attitude to Christmas pudding." It was this attitude towards Christmas pudding that led to the rift between Theophilius Hopkins and his son Oscar.

Peter Carey has a very unique voice, though certain aspects of it kept reminding me of a wide variety of specific authors. For example, the quirky names and descriptions of people often made me think of Charles Dickens, whereas the matter-of-fact descriptions of certain body parts, functions, and ailments brought to mind Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Carey also uses a lot of words. I know that's a weird thing to say, but I mean...maybe I'm not sure exactly what I mean. The sentences were complex and the writing was often quite dense. But not in a bad way where it's hard to get past the language and into the story. If anything, I felt the density of the language only contributed to the story. Putting these different elements together lead to, as I said, a very unique voice.

Despite its humor and quirkiness, there are a lot of subjects addressed in this novel, such as 19th century feminism and the loneliness and ostricization (yes, I may have just made up that word) that came with such modern ideas. Lucinda was very much ahead of her time and was constantly thwarted and frustrated in her endeavors because of the limitations of her sex. The novel also focuses a great deal on religion, exploring different denominations of Christianity and the emergence of Darwinism. At least five prominent characters are vicars or ministers of some kind, all with differing views on their faith. Last month I posted a review of The Queen's Lady where I complained a lot about the way the author dealt with the complications of Christianity in Tudor England. I am happy to report that there will be no repetition of those complaints. Instead, I found Carey's examination of Victorian Christianity to be complex, intriguing, ambiguous and respectful. At no point did he try to say that any one idea was totally right or that any one idea was totally wrong. Everything was a valid idea.

Lastly, I should let my sister the librarian know that I will finally admit defeat and agree that "gewgaw" is a real word...albeit a stupid one.

5/5

It's Tuesday, where are you?

2010-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

Oscar and Lucinda
Parramatta, New South Wales, Australia 1852

The Summer of the Danes - Ellis Peters

2010-08-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

the summer of the danes
ellis peters
c. 1991
245 pages
completed 8/9/2010

read for: brother cadfael chronicles

*may contain spoilers*

The extraordinary events of that summer of 1144 may properly be said to have begun the previous year, in a tangle of threads both ecclesiastic and secular, a net in which any number of diverse people became enmeshed: clerics, from the archbishop down to Bishop Roger de Clinton's lowliest deacon, and the laity from the princes of North Wales down to the humblest cottager in the trefs of Arfon.

Brother Mark, who once was Brother's Cadfael assistant in the abbey's herb garden, has gone on to become a deacon to Bishop Roger de Clinton and has been sent as an envoy to the newly appointed Bishop Gilbert in the North of Wales. Needing an interpreter, his old mentor Cadfael is allowed to accompany him. But what should have been a quick and pleasant foray in Wales quickly turns more deadly Cadfael and Mark find themselves thrust into the middle of warring brother princes and foreign invaders.

I think this has to be my least favorite installment in the Brother Cadfael mysteries simply because there was no mystery. I mean, someone was murdered, but no one really cared too much because of the immediate threat of war. In the last chapter there is a deathbed confession by the murderer, but by that time you'd kind of forgotten who it was that had been murdered so you really didn't care. And Cadfael was really in no way involved. I think I've said it before, but I really like the formulaic nature of the earliest episodes and the ones that stray from that formula aren't nearly as good.

I also had a big problem with the lovers in this edition. In each mystery, there are always two people who are already in love or who fall in love that Cadfael kind of has to help out, and normally they're incredibly endearing and worthy of Cadfael's devotion. Occasionally there have been a few that have taken some time for me to warm up to, but eventually they always win me over. Not this time. Heledd was frosty and malicious towards her father (though I do agree she had some cause for this) and even kind of mean to Brother Mark in the beginning. And I love Brother Mark. There is no need to go out of your way to make him uncomfortable just because you think it's funny.

So to sum up there was no real mystery and an unsatisfactory love story. I did enjoy learning more about Prince Owain of Gwynedd and his family, but that's not enough. Sad.

3/5

Jim the Boy - Tony Early

2010-08-08T15:32:00.000-07:00

jim the boy
tony early
c. 2000
256 pages
completed 7/22/2010

read for: tbr challenge

*may contain spoilers*

During the night something like a miracle happened: Jim's age grew an extra digit.

Jim is a boy living in a small town in North Carolina during the Great Depression. During the year he turns ten his life teaches him lessons on friendship, family, and what it means to be a man.

It's been a little while since I finished this book. My head has been in another space the past week since I just moved to a new apartment in Seattle with my sister the literature scholar. So this review is probably going to be a little short. I should have written it closer to when I had finished it.

This was a very quiet little book. Much of it was very sweet and somewhat idyllic: a small boy living with a mother and uncles who love him whose biggest problem seemed to be a competition with another boy from school to see who was better at everything. Things took a bit of a turn at the end and Jim came in contact with some much bigger issues (poverty and polio among other things). For the most part, though, I was reminded of books like Little Women and Little House on the Prairie with simple episodic life lessons.

4/5

By the end of August...

2010-08-02T11:59:00.001-07:00

I don't really know how but July kind of got away from me. I got through basically nothing. I say this month will be different, but let's be for real. It won't be...

To Be Read by the End of August
~~Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey~~
Possession - AS Byatt
The Known World - Edward P Jones
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
~~Cleopatra's Daughter - Michelle Moran~~

To be read...

2010-08-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

The King's General - Daphne du Maurier
The Scarlet Contessa - Jeanne Kalogidis
Purge - Sofi Oksaner
The Secret Confession of Anne Shakespeare - Arliss Ryan
Whiter Than Snow - Sandra Dallas
Mrs. Tim of the Regiment - DE Stevenson
The Mystic Art of Erasing All Signs of Death - Charlie Huston
Finny - Justin Kramon
Nightingale Wood - Stella Gibson
Where's My Wand? - Eric Poole
Empress Orchid - Anchee Min
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran - Rob Sheffield
My Name is Mary Sutter - Robin Oliveira
The Devil Amongst the Lawyers - Sharyn McCrumb
The Amelia Peabody Mysteries - Elizabeth Peters (series)

14 new books and 1 new series. Wow. Not too many added this month...

Music Mix Friday...The Beatles "Yellow Submarine"

2010-07-23T12:24:00.001-07:00

What British invasion would be complete without the Beatles? My sister the literature scholar comes home on Sunday. What better way to celebrate her return from England than with our own Beatlemania in the form of the Beatles song she hates the most? You would not believe how many people have made cartoon videos of this song. It's out of control.

The Queen's Lady - Barbara Kyle

2010-07-22T14:56:00.000-07:00

the queen's lady
barbara kyle
c. 1994 (as a dangerous temptation)
525 pages
completed 7/16/2010

read for: year of the historical challenge

*may contain spoilers*

She would remember this forever after as the night she watched two men die, one at peace and one in terror.

After the death and simultaneous excommunication of her father, Honor Larke is taken under the guardianship of a greedy and devious noble and an equally evil priest. Several years later she is rescued by Sir Thomas Moore and brought up as his ward during which time she is noticed by the Queen of England, Catherine of Aragon. Honor begins serving as one of her ladies-in-waiting and soon becomes a trusted confidante and letter carrier. However, after witnessing the burning of two heretics, one of whom was a childhood friend, Honor begins to question the religion she was brought up in and which is so enmeshed in the lives of her two benefactors (the Queen and Sir Thomas). Honor's questioning soon boils over into action as she teams up with two very different men, one rash and reckless and one cool and collected, in order to rid England of intolerance.

The synopsis on the back of this book gave me a very different idea of what this book was going to be. In no way did it mention religion and the tension between Protestants and Catholics and Honor becoming this Scarlet Pimpernel for Protestants character. I went into this expecting a very certain kind of historical fiction, something a little more serious, but what I got instead was a lot more melodramatic and outrageous. Maybe if I'd gone into this expecting it to be more crazy adventure I could have gotten behind it more. As it was, I found a lot of Honor's schemes unbelievable. Not just unbelievable, but unbelievably reckless and stupid. And kind of far-fetched, especially the time she was stuck in the hold of the ship for three days with no food or water and in order to save her, her partner set the boat on fire. It was just too over the top for me.

I also didn't find Honor's religious transformation all that believable. I understand that she was heartbroken by the death of Ralph. Believe me, I was too. If you are a servant boy in your late teens or early twenties and you have an absolute unwavering devotion to your mistress, especially one who is either a child or well into middle/old age, it's pretty much a given that I will fall for you. So yes, Honor's whole world was rocked when Ralph was burned as a heretic. But once she began to argue with Sir Thomas about the justification of his execution she lost me. She began the discussion assuming there had been a mistake and Ralph was innocent of heresy, but as soon as it had been proven to her that there was no mistake, that Ralph was indeed a Protestant, just like that (imagine fingers snapping) she changed her tune to argue that these heretical beliefs were okay to have. And that I couldn't buy. Honor had been described as a learned theologian. Sir Thomas had made sure to have Honor well educated, she corresponded with leading theologians of the time, so Protestant ideas could not have been new to her. To change her beliefs on the merits of Protestantism so suddenly made no sense to me.

As her new ideas on Protestantism made no sense to me, neither did most of the rest of her actions throughout the rest of the book as they all stemmed from this incident. Becoming the savior of the Protestants, Honor who before now was known as the Queen's last, most loyal lady-in-waiting, secretly teams up with Thomas Cromwell to get Anne on the throne, thinking she would lead the country to tolerance. Before, she had almost an infatuation with her guardian Sir Thomas, and now she does everything in her power to destroy him. The book even used Honor to give Cromwell the idea to make everyone swear an oath of succession, the oath that brought Sir Thomas to his death. She just so easily betrayed these people who loved her and gave her everything. I found it amusing that her name was Honor considering she really had none. It was so hard to get behind anything she did. Also amusing that though she seemed to be fighting so hard for tolerance of Protestantism, she seemed to have no tolerance of other people's religious beliefs. This book made sure to show the worst sides of religion, the greed and violence, (Catholic, Lutheran, and Anabaptist mostly) and not much of the good, turning Honor further and further into atheism. Which would have been fine had she not been so sanctimonious about how she had found the answers and that all religion was crap and those who couldn't see that were blind and stupid. I know there are two more books in this series but I don't think I will be reading them.

3/5

Movie Mondays

2010-07-19T22:09:00.000-07:00

Still going with the 2010 Oscar nominees. Tonight we watched District 9. Well...okay, we watched about 20-25 minutes of it. I was surprised I even made it that far. I really don't do aliens. My mother didn't even make it all 25 minutes, opting instead to "rest her eyes" (read: sleep). Dad probably could have kept going, but he's leaving for Japan tomorrow and they'll probably offer it on the plane and he can watch it there without my probably uninvited commentary.

Keeping with the Oscar theme, I have a lifetime goal of watching all the films that have ever been nominated for one of the BIG SIX awards (best picture, lead and supporting actor,/actress and director), preferably in chronological order from the beginning of the Oscars to the present. Well, I say all but I left out the first two years or so since I have a hard time making it through a silent movie. And there are a lot from the early 30s that are hard to find and I'm not going to go out of my way to look for them (which is probably good...when I talk to my Dad about this project he tells me I need a hobby). I kind of started this project a few years ago and so far I watched 6 (you're super impressed, right?). And by I've watched 6, I mean a STARTED watching six. I've only finished watching 3. Today's movie Arrowsmith, based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis, was one of the ones I finished. And I have to say I liked it. Arrowsmith is a man with potential to become a great medical researcher, but puts his dream on hold when he falls in love and decides to get married. After several years as a country physician, he is given another chance to follow his dream as a medical researcher. After creating a serum that could possibly destroy any bacteria, he is sent to the West Indies to combat a breakout of bubonic plague, but while there he is met with ethical dilemmas. Should he treat his patients and conduct his experiments in the name of science or humanity? I think the novel it's based on takes a much more critical look at the medical profession of the time, looking for quick results and breakthroughs and publicity, but the movie only touches on that a little. There's also a lot more to Arrowsmith's character I believe. But still, I found the movie to be enjoyable. And it's significant in that it's the first American movie to feature a black character with a college degree and who wasn't characterized as a 1930s stereotypical African American (no tap dancing, poor speaking skills, etc).

Earlier in the week, continuing with the sports movie theme of last weeks A League of Their Own, Dad and I watched Pride of the Yankees. I have a hard time thinking of this movie without thinking of that Friends episode where Phoebe is watching movies she never realized were sad. "Pride of the Yankees? I thought yea, Yankee pride and then BAM! Lou Gehrig's disease." And then Richard's response, "They guy was Lou Gehrig. Didn't you kind of see that coming?" Classic. Anyway...I know this is supposed to be a classic tearjerker sports movie, but to be totally honest, it never really felt all that moving. Lou Gehrig kind of came off as a goober, even though he made a great good-bye speech. Too often conversation in movies from this time period comes across as a little unnatural, so it's hard to really get an emotional connection with anyone. I did really like Papa Gehrig. My biggest reaction to the movie was thinking the bracelet he gave his wife for their fourth anniversary, made up of medals he'd won throughout the years was kind of heinous. And then I felt bad when I realized the bracelet they used in the movie was the actual one he gave his wife and is now in the baseball hall of fame.

Knowing me to be a secret lover of all things 80s (I am an 80s baby after all), my sister the librarian brought Footloose home from the library the other day. Somehow this was a movie I had yet to see. I know, all of you are thinking JUMP BACK. But it's true. Somehow Footloose had evaded me. The situation now rectified, I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite movie. Sure it's a little far fetched and a little dated and a little campy, but sometime that is what makes a really excellent movie. And did you know it almost starred Rob Lowe instead of Kevin Bacon? Yeah, had that actually happened I'm pretty sure I would have seen this movie long ago.

And the last movie from the past week, The Greatest. It was a little independent movie from last year about an 18 year old girl who shows up at the home of two grieving parents 3 months pregnant from the one

night she spent with their son. The night he died. It's funny...had I read this synopsis for a book as opposed to a movie there's absolutely no way I would have read it. I don't do grief books. Too often I find them melodramatic and saccharine and a bit cliche. Not to say that all books dealing with grief should be characterized that way, but for me they don't connect and so I tend to stay away from them. That being said, movies that deal with grief I can often get behind. I don't know what it is about the different mediums. Maybe the fact that I can see their pain and despair in the tiny movements of their faces and in their unsaid words instead of the sometimes overwrought descriptions of those emotions. I really liked this movie. Though dealing with a very sad topic, there was also a lot of humor. I don't like movies to be too depressing. There needs to be a bit of a bright spot, and Rose, the pregnant girl was just that. I'm beginning to think I'd watch just about anything Carey Mulligan was in. The stoner little brother was fun, too. I always like the stoner kids in movies, I don't know why (though if I think about it, perhaps the stoner high school boyfriend has something to do with that...). Anyway, good movie. Sad, but hopeful. Maybe my dad's right. Maybe I do need a hobby...

What movies have you been watching this week?

A Prayer for the City - Buzz Bissinger

2010-07-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

a prayer for the city
buzz bissinger
c. 1998
379 pages
completed 7/16/2010

read for: hstaa303 (modern american civilization)

*may contain spoilers*

Success followed success and as he persuaded more and more people with the spontaneous symphony of his hands and the infectious rhythm of his voice to see a place he saw, it became easier to believe that there was something wondrous about him, regardless of the patches of hair sprouting from his head like a failed English garden, not to mention the balled-up blue suits that looked as if they had been burrowed away in gym bags.

During the early '90s, Buzz Bissinger enjoyed almost unfettered access to the Ed Rendell, mayor of Philadelphia. The information he gathered was used to novelize the first five years of Rendell's term in office attempting to rebuild a city that was falling apart. A Prayer for the City tells a story of race relations, unemployment, murder, but also one of hope and hard work. Littered with characters who worked within Rendell's administration such as his chief of staff David Cohen, as well as people just trying to survive in the city, such as Linda Morris, Fifi Mazzccua, Mike McGovern, and Jim Mangan, we are offered insight into the unimaginable struggles to keep America's cities afloat.

I was supposed to read this for my America History class this past quarter. And I did. Or at least I read about half of it by the time the final came around. But that was fine. I had read enough to participate in the discussions and write about it on final if I had to. Most books like this assigned for a particular class I would have abandoned as soon as I turned in that bluebook, but there was something that kept pulling me back to pick it up and read a little bit more. The people discussed were compelling and the draw of the city itself and wanting to see it get better forced me to continue. So here I am, a month after the quarter ended, finally finished with the book.

A Prayer for the City is non fiction but it's written almost as a novel. There's conversation and character development and a somewhat moving plot. We not only see the struggles of the city from the government's point of view, but also just from the people. We watch Mike McGovern make the decision to give up his life as a Philadelphia district attorney and take his family to the outskirts of the city and take up criminal defense. We see Jim Mangan soldier on during cut backs at the ship yard until the yard is closed entirely. And we see Fifi Mazzccua raise her children and grandchildren in a poor area of the city, some of whom fall into violence and jail time, but some who don't. It was easy to feel a connection the these people and a hope for them to succeed. Ed Rendell became mayor to one of the most struggling cities in America, but despite a lot of set backs and failures, there was progress.

4/5

Music Mix Friday...the Noisettes "Don't Upset the Rhythm"

2010-07-16T10:29:00.000-07:00

More British invasion...