Booklog

The Abstinence Teacher

2008-10-19T15:20:00.004-05:00

I have a love/hate thing going with Tom Perrotta. I loved Election and Little Children (although, strangely, I thought in both cases the movie was better than the book), was ambivalent toward The Wishbones, and really did not like Joe College. The Abstinence Teacher is hands down my favorite of Perrotta's books. The characters are believable and evoke sympathy, and the theme relevant (one of Perrotta's greatest strengths), highlighting the tension between secular and religious America. I highly recommend it.

The Road

2008-10-19T15:07:00.003-05:00

Bleak, depressing, and sad, The Road could fall into the genre of the dystopic novel because of its post-apocalyptic setting, but I consider it an allegory of the parent-child relationship. The parent goes through hardship to care for the child and keep him alive. The parent tries to explain why he is doing what he is doing, even though the child cannot understand, and the parent cannot adequately explain. The parent tries to instill a sense of morality. All of this done in the hope that the child will be equipped to care for himself when it becomes necessary. While I didn't love The Road (so bleak, depressing, and sad), I am comforted by the message in the face of my own grief in the recent loss of my mother.

Highlights from the last year

2008-10-04T10:19:00.003-05:00

The best books I've read in the last year:

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon)
Suite Francaise (Irene Nemirovsky)
The Nine (Jeffrey Toobin)
The Abstinence Teacher (Tom Perrotta)
George Saunders (Pastoralia, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, The Braindead Megaphone)
Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri)

Other books I liked:

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (Janelle Brown)
Lush Life (Richard Price)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie)

A whole year?

2008-10-04T09:51:00.003-05:00

I haven't updated this blog in over a year. I am a fly-by-night, follow-the-trend-then-abandon-it kind of girl. I had a facebook page for about six months too. Life has thrown me a lot of crap in the last year, last two years, actually, but there has been one constant: books. As long as I can still take refuge in a fictional world, the real world is a little easier to traverse. My reading over the last year has been spotty, and my views clearly colored by what I've been going through. I know The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is an excellent novel, but because I was reading it as my mother was dying, it is forever tainted. I've abandoned a lot of books over the last year as well, some unable to hold my interest, others I've deemed a waste in a short life. My love of books has brought me back here, and I think I'm going to give mini-reviewing another go.

Falling Man--Don DeLillo

2007-09-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

I think DeLillo isn't at the top of his game with Falling Man, which pains me as a DeLillophile (and thus frequent apologist). Plot summary: a couple struggles to make sense of 9/11, cut three years, they are better, but still messed up. The title falling man is but a small part, as are the disjointed scenes fictionalizing the radical conversion of Mohammed Atta. The elements of what DeLillo does well are still evident here--scenes of dense imagery that leave you breathless (the last few pages are particularly brilliant)--but the plot doesn't really go anywhere. Perhaps the lack of plot direction is intended to reflect that as a society we still lack focus and consensus about the meaning of 9/11, but maybe I'm giving DeLillo too much credit and it's just an unfocused novel.

She's Not There--Jennifer Finney Boylan

2007-09-08T19:42:00.000-05:00

**Book Club Pick** She's Not There is the memoir of a transgendered English professor in the process of transitioning from male to female. I have mixed feelings about this book. By turns funny, sad, and intriguing (Richard Russo is her best friend!), I don't feel like I gained an overarching understanding of transgender from reading it. There were moments in the book where she had the opportunity to go a little deeper into gender issues, and I felt like she chose to stay superficial and focus on the chronology and the details of the transition and its effect on her friends and family. For example, shortly after she transitioned, she was chatted up by a drunk man who followed her out of the bar, got demanding, and ended up following her in her car. He passed on by when she stopped at a gas station, but she had quite a scare. To me, this was a great opportunity for her to discuss the fears women face every day, what it means to be a woman in this society, something like that, but she didn't even scratch the surface. Disappointingly, she just recounted it as a story. I must say, though, that this book got the discussion going in our book club like never before, trying to wrap our heads around gender, its meaning and implications.

Mao II--Don DeLillo

2007-09-08T19:00:00.001-05:00

In Mao II, DeLillo delves into the world of a renowned author and later links him to terrorism, drawing a comparison between writers and terrorists as societal participants. He is also concerned with the crowd as a cultural function or force. DeLillo's cultural commentary is prescient and spot-on. His observations are unspoken universal truths and when coupled with his incredible, dense imagery, they are discomforting, to the point that at times I had to put the book down and take a breath to curb physical manifestations of anxiety. Yeah, his dialogue is stilted, but that has never bothered me that much. To me, it is meta-dialogue, dialectical in function. I can't describe the effect DeLillo has on me, except to say that he makes me look at the world differently.

The Killer Angels--Michael Shaara

2007-09-08T18:55:00.000-05:00

**Book Club Pick** Traditional Civil War history is not my thing, due in large part, to its focus on military minutia and great men to the exclusion of other historical considerations. At the same time, however, I am greatly intrigued by the Civil War, arguably the single most important event in the development of our nation, as I believe that we are still dealing with its ramifications in this country today, in ways most of us are unaware. Unfortunately for me then, The Killer Angels, a fictionalized retelling of the battle of Gettysburg, focuses on great men and military minutia. My prejudice against this type of history, however, didn't prevent me from recognizing the work as a readable, well-told story of the personalities behind the battle and the significance of that battle in the larger military context of the war.

The History of Love--Nicole Krauss

2007-08-07T17:24:00.000-05:00

I liked this one, although I kept getting characters mixed up, but I couldn't help thinking about how Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer and how their books had similar themes, and then I wondered about what it would be like for two writers to live together. Do they borrow ideas from each other? Are they secretive with what they are working on? Do they bounce ideas off each other? Do they borrow discarded ideas from one another? I couldn't stop thinking about this, and it kept me from enjoying the book. Weird, I know.

I Am the Messenger--Markus Zusak

2007-08-07T17:17:00.000-05:00

I loved the Book Thief so much that I had to pick this one up when I saw it glinting on the library shelf. Ed Kennedy is getting mysterious messages on playing cards, directing him to do things to help his fellow man. Without a lot going on in his life, he takes up the mantle and starts making people feel good. Quirky and hopeful, it's a nice story.

The Thirteenth Tale--Diane Setterfield

2007-08-07T17:06:00.000-05:00

A story within a story, about mysteries (fictional and metafictional), authors, and the love of books qua books. Set in the English countryside, it has a gothic feel. When I finished this (back in May, I believe) I loved it, but in retrospect, some of the connections between characters don't totally add up for me. But still a good read, though I'd recommend it for winter, when you can curl up with it, and a blanket, and a cup of cocoa. There's a lot of cocoa drinking going on in it.

2007-08-07T17:05:00.001-05:00

Confession: I have read thirteen books since my last post. I have no excuse but that I've had one crazy summer, replete with family and personal health crises, high school reunion planning, and a wild Harry Potter birthday party (wild for six- and seven-year-olds, that is). I'm taking suggestions for an appropriate penance.

2007-06-16T09:06:00.000-05:00

I'm so far behind in posting (six books or so!) because of this thing called Goodreads.com, a social networking site for people who like to read. It is completely addictive. Check it out if you are so inclined. I'm posting reviews of books I read there, and soon will transfer them here, but I may abandon the blog all together in favor of goodreads. I'm still deciding.

I Am Charlotte Simmons--Tom Wolfe

2007-05-28T12:09:00.000-05:00

I came to I Am Charlotte Simmons with trepidation. I had read the reviews that likened Wolfe to a voyeur and questioned his motivation in spending years "observing" typical college students fifty years his junior. It seemed creepy. But when I saw it in the bargain bin, I couldn't resist, and as it turned out, I couldn't put the thing down. Wolfe is a great writer and storyteller, and although there are some weird things about the book, like his linguistic obsessions over current uses of profanity, he presents a compelling story and a fascinating character in Charlotte. Charlotte, a brilliant student from the impoverished, rural North Carolina, earns a scholarship to the prestigious Dupont University, and dreams of intellectual stimulation unlike she has ever known. Instead, she finds a world of wealth, privilege, and debauchery. Although she wants to play the games of sexual intrigue of her classmates, she has none of the requisite accompanying hardness and cynicism, so her efforts are personally devastating. Wolfe deftly tackles big themes--purity, vanity, greed, social class. He may have gotten some of the details wrong, and if you are currently a college student I'm sure you will find much with which to quarrel, but the bigger story is superb.

About Alice--Calvin Trillin

2007-05-28T11:46:00.000-05:00

In About Alice, Calvin Trillin pens a moving tribute to his late wife of nearly 40 years. He celebrates her passions and her quirks and their life together. Both sad and sweet, it is a true-to-life love story. Have tissues handy.

Black Swan Green--David Mitchell

2007-05-28T09:49:00.000-05:00

**My Book Club Pick** Set in the early 1980s in a small English suburb, Mitchell navigates the treacherous waters of early adolescence, through the eyes of Jason Taylor. Jason's life is changing. His parents are fighting, his sister is leaving for university, and he works to control the "hangman" who makes him stammer. There is the usual coming of age fare here--dealing with bullies, avoiding appearing too interested in school, and sexual curiosity--but Black Swan Green's poignance and quirkiness set this one apart from similar works. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

The Birthday Party--Stanley N. Alpert

2007-05-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

In The Birthday Party former federal prosecutor Stanley N. Alpert recounts his random kidnapping in 1998, in which he was held for 24 hours and then released; his abductors wanted only to withdraw money from his bank account. They targeted him because of his expensive-looking trench coat. He was treated well, as far as these things go, and released unharmed, but the experience was still harrowing. That much of the story is interesting. I'll give him that. But this is not a good book. It is poorly written, very poorly, and Alpert comes off as a whiny, chauvanistic, elitist snob, frequently mentioning the cost of personal items he owns and the large amount of money he made as a law-firm lawyer, neither of which were relevant to his abduction. Further, he spent a great deal of time talking about how important he was as a federal prosecutor. If I didn't work with federal judges and prosecutors on a regular basis, I might have bought that, but I do, and most of them are not as egomanical as Alpert comes off in the book. If Alpert would have stuck to the details of the crime and later the investigation without the personal details that appear only to self-aggrandize, it would have been a better book. Avoid this one.

The Mighty and the Almighty--Madeleine Albright

2007-05-11T21:14:00.001-05:00

Full disclosure. I love Madeleine Albright. She is a hero to me--brilliant, tough, and a successful Secretary of State. It makes me love Bill Clinton more for choosing her to represent America to the world. The Mighty and the Almighty was not the most fascinating memoir I've ever read (sorry Maddy!). But its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. Albright talks about the Clinton administration's decision-making processes (which she speculates are far, far different from those of the current administration), and speaks candidly of both their foreign policy triumphs and errors. All in all, interesting thoughts of a fascinating American.

American Fascists--Chris Hedges

2007-05-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

Last year, I read Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming, about the rise of "Christian Nationalism," the political movement of evangelical Christians. I said it was the scariest book I had read in a while. Strike that, American Fascists is the scariest book I have read, possibly ever. Picking up on the same themes, but with more alarmism, Hedges describes the twenty-five year progression that began with Pat Robertson's and Jerry Falwell's early televangelism, and has led to enormous political influence over government from the local school board that mandates the teaching of creationism to the establishment of the Republican Party. Hedges makes a number of arguments, but his most paradoxical is that liberals who value a free society are harming that very ideal by tolerating the intolerant "Dominionists". He likens the movement, whose ultimate political goal is an American theocracy, to the Nazi party. Hedges--the son of a Presbyterian minister, graduate of Harvard Divinity School, and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist--has the street cred to know of what he speaks. If this interests you, read it, along with Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming. It will send shivers down your spine.

The Book Thief--Markus Zusak

2007-05-11T20:32:00.000-05:00

In the interest of getting caught up on my now seven-book backlog, I'll be brief. The Book Thief is wonderful. I'd even call it delightful, except that it deals with some difficult subject matter. Set in Nazi Germany, The Book Thief is narrated by the very busy angel of death, who tells in detail the story of Leisel Memminger, an orphan adopted by a working-class German family in the late 1930s. Leisel's coming of age (and her intense love of books) is set against the poverty of her circumstances and the uncertainty and fear that characterized Hitler's rise to power. I highly recommend it; one of my favorites so far this year. A shout out to briefwriter for suggesting it.

The Scarlet Letter--Nathaniel Hawthorne

2007-04-23T21:06:00.000-05:00

I have posted before how I tended not to read the books that I was assigned to read in high school. The Scarlet Letter, however, I did read, but I didn't understand it. I have memories of reading the assigned pages, being rather confused, then getting to class to have Mrs. Nicholson tell me what I had read, and thinking, "that's not what I read." Luckily, I understood it this time around, and I'm very glad I gave it another try. On this read I realized that it is just a superb story, with the angry, craggy Roger Chillingworth, taking revenge on tortured Arthur Dimmesdale, and poor Hester Prynne faced daily with her indiscretion by the letter on her breast, and the child flitting about her, and none able to be happy because of repressed puritan society. Good stuff.

Libra--Don DeLillo

2007-04-21T12:53:00.000-05:00

Due to my general malaise, and unforseen computer problems, I am a shameful and unprecedent five books behind in posting. Mea Culpa.

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Libra is Don DeLillo's take on the Kennedy assassination, and the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. DeLillo recounts Oswald's (fictionalized) life story, focusing on significant life events that impact his tragic choices and mythical end. DeLillo is so gentle with Oswald--revealing him to be idealistic and well-intentioned, albeit seriously misguided and somewhat dim--that I developed a great deal of sympathy for him. A parallel plot involves the role of the CIA in recruiting and directing Oswald. This is interesting as a theory, but because stories of CIA intrigue aren't really my thing, those parts dragged for me. But, DeLillo is an amazing writer, one of the best, and his unique descriptive voice enlivens this legendary piece of American history. The pages describing the assassination are excruciatingly beautiful and haunting, and they stayed with me for days.

The Uses of Enchantment--Heidi Julavits

2007-04-01T08:43:00.000-05:00

The Uses of Enchantment tells the story of a middle-class suburban teenager, Mary Veal, who mysteriously disappears. When she turns up after a couple of months, she is taken under the wing of a therapist who determines that she faked her own abduction, and writes a book about this "syndrome" in adolescent girls. The story is told from different perspectives--that of the therapist, the present-day teenager (now in her 30s), and chapters entitled "What Might Have Happened," which recount the abduction (or do they?). There is also a parallel story of a teenager abducted in the 1970s under similar circumstances, and another one about a Salem witch. What actually happened is never made clear, which I guess is much of the point, but so frustrating! I'm not opposed to ambiguity in plot, and under certain circumstances find it refreshing, but there was so much ambiguity here that it obscured the story. Although Julavits is great at description, there is also some uneveness in tone, and I found some of the dialogue (exchanges with her sisters, in particular) excruciating. I have no sisters and therefore no personal experience upon which to judge, so perhaps talking to them is excruciating? All in all, an ambitious novel with some rough patches.

Everyman--Philip Roth

2007-03-04T16:41:00.000-06:00

Why, oh why, did I pick this up at the library? I knew it would be utterly depressing, and it was. Utterly. But I loved The Plot Against America, and I couldn't resist Everyman's compact size for throwing into my lunch bag for reading on the train to work. (Indeed, my book choices are frequently informed by ease of carrying onto the metrolink.) In brief, the story begins at a funeral of the "everyman" main character, then Roth recounts the life that was, focusing in particular on old age, which he calls "a massacre." Roth is getting old and he's not happy about it. If you love Roth you should read this because the things that Roth does well--visceral orientation to time and place--he does well here, but it is a total downer. You have been warned.

Old School--Tobias Wolff

2007-03-04T16:12:00.000-06:00

Old School is a coming-of-age story, set in a New England prep school in the 1960s. The unnamed narrator defines himself by his association with the prep-school literary elite--the editorial board of the school literary magazine. In the narrator's senior year, the school hosts Robert Frost, Ayn Rand, and the most admired author of the students--Ernest Hemingway. He and his classmates contend for a personal audience with each author through writing contests, in which they try to best themselves and each other.

I was surprised at how much I liked this novel. I picked it up at a library branch we don't usually frequent unless it's cold and Ben needs to get out of the house (it has an overwhelming amount of toys for a library), and I managed to read about 50 pages while he played. I love how Wolff describes being in love with literature, and the creative inspiration of youth. He makes palpable the feeling that nothing is better than writing the perfect sentence. Granted, it is one of too many novels about the white, privileged, east coast elite, and it loses points for that, but what is good about Old School outweighs what isn't.

Fahrenheit 451--Ray Bradbury

2007-02-26T21:44:00.000-06:00

Ack! I'm four books behind in posting, so, the next few entries are going to be quick and dirty.

**Book Club Pick** Literature has no place in the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451, where people spend days listening to eerily-iPod-like "shells," and watching reality programs on big-screen televisions. Fire no longer threatens homes, but firemen still exist for burning books, incendiary literature being the danger. Guy Montag (a superb literary name, I must say), one of these fireman, meets a young woman who makes him believe that there is more to life than distraction, that conversation and thought, long forgotten and suppressed, are the source of ultimate freedom. The book tells of Guy's personal journey in rejecting the system and searching for meaning, as the greater society implodes. I'd never read Fahrenheit 451. It made me think about control of information and my luddite fear that placing information in electronic files is a way of ceding ownership of that information, probably one of the reasons I keep buying books. Bradbury's predictions about distractions to keep society from thinking, have come to pass. I hope book burning isn't looming.

Black and Blue--Anna Quindlen

2007-02-02T20:41:00.000-06:00

I would not have picked up Black and Blue, with its proudly-displayed "Oprah's Book Club" emblem, had it not been a quarter at the annual neighborhood yard sale, but seeing as it was under a dollar, and was written by a journalist I admire, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Basic plot: smart woman in abusive relationship almost dies from a beating, and finally leaves with her son. She starts a new life, but it is clouded by the threat of her husband finding her. Quindlen creates a believeable world that includes some very well-written supporting characters, and she made the point that smart women can end up in abusive relationships. Got it. Not an utter waste of time, but not really my thing.

Pastoralia--George Saunders

2007-02-02T08:14:00.000-06:00

Tom recommended this short story collection to me, and seeing how Tom has made some great recommendations in the past--I still have his now dogeared copy of John Berger's Ways of Seeing--I decided to give Pastoralia a try. Good stories--funny and odd--with some nice pomo social commentary thrown in. I really liked the story "Pastoralia," and a few of the others. In fact, I liked them so much that I might pick up Saunders's more recent In Persuasion Nation.

A sad day

2007-02-01T14:18:00.000-06:00

Molly Ivins, Columnist, Dies at 62

Treasuring the Wit and Wisdom of Molly Ivins

This Is Not Chick Lit--Elizabeth Merrick, Ed.

2007-01-20T08:29:00.000-06:00

**My Book Club Pick** I chose This Is Not Chick Lit for book club because we don't usually pick anthologies, and I wanted us to read some contemporary women authors. I was also curious to see if the whole "chick lit" thing would provoke discussion. Indeed, a lively discussion was had. Most of us felt that although chick lit may not be high literature, it has its place and shouldn't be relegated to the Harlequin romance section, and that chick lit, as a genre, offers more than its stereotype. We also discussed the anti-chick-lit chick-lit cover.

High points in the anthology: "Volunteers are Shining Stars," Curtis Sittenfeld's exploration of the fine line between crazy and not crazy; Jennifer Egan's "Selling the General," in which a Central American dictator gets a PR makeover; Judy Budnitz's "Jean, Jeanne, La Pucelle, Maid of Orleans," wherein Joan of Arc's crusade is captured by a reality television crew; and Roxana Robinson's "Embrace," the tale of an evolving marriage forced to endure tragedy. Overall, I give high marks to This Is Not Chick Lit. As with any anthology it contains some stinkers, but there are also some thought-provoking stories.

Year-End Recap

2007-01-01T22:27:00.000-06:00

So, I managed to read 52 books in 2006, a couple more than I set out to, and at a pace of roughly one book a week. While I feel I accomplished an admirable goal, there were times when I stressed myself out over reading, something I never wished to happen. Overall though, it wasn't that hard to achieve, the only sacrifice being some craptastic TV. This may be the year, however, in which Ben remembers his mother telling him repeatedly, "I'll be there as soon as I finish this paragraph." I will remember 2006 as the year I discovered the amazing Daniel Woodrell, the year Margaret Atwood's fabulosity became firmly cemented in my brain, and the year I became nearly obsessed with Harry Potter. Also high on my list of the 52: The Plot Against America (although I had read it before), Never Let Me Go, Veronica, Kafka on the Shore, The Thin Place, This Book Will Save Your Life, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and The Keep.

In 2007, I'm not going to hold myself to the 50 book goal, but am going to attempt to read as many as I can of the books that I already own but have not yet read. There are many--probably 50 or so--that stand as a testament to my little book-buying problem. I do go to the library weekly, so I'm sure I'll pick up other things along the way, but hopefully by the end of 2007 I will have made a serious dent in the "yet to read" shelf. I'm also going to keep blogging as I go, so stay tuned, if you are so inclined.

52. Give Us A Kiss--Daniel Woodrell

2007-01-01T21:44:00.001-06:00

I so enjoyed Winter's Bone (see below), that I set out to read another Woodrell forthwith. In Give Us A Kiss: A Country Noir, Doyle Redmond, a published but unknown author, leaves California in a Volvo stolen from his unfaithful wife, to return to his native Missouri. He sees his parents who dispatch him to find his brother, Smoke, and to convince him to turn himself in on outstanding arrest warrants in Kansas City. Doyle finds Smoke deep in the woods near their hometown of West Table, in the Missouri Ozarks along the Arkansas border, cultivating a cash crop of marijuana. Needing money to finish his next novel, Doyle pitches in on tending and harvesting the crop, a dangerous job due to a long-standing feud between the Redmonds and another hillbilly family. The perhaps autobiographical Give Us a Kiss is both more country and more noir than Winter's Bone. Woodrell's use of language is rougher and the plot is grittier and bloodier. But, I am more convinced after reading Give Us A Kiss, that Woodrell is doing something unlike any other current author in telling heretofore untold tales of the harsh realities of life in contemporary rural America. Brilliant, albeit disturbing.

51. The Keep--Jennifer Egan

2007-01-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

I was really surprised by The Keep. I had read several glowing reviews and thought I knew what I was getting into. A story about two cousins, bound by a traumatic childhood event, who reunite as adults to renovate a decrepit castle in Eastern Europe. I also read that there was a parallel story, which I thought was about the childhood event. But I was all wrong. The parallel stories (which, following in the footsteps of those reviews, I won't give away) are much more disparate. The Keep is one of those novels where seemingly dissimilar characters and stories are brought together by the end of the book, and I must admit, I love those, especially when done well. And Egan does it well. I also loved the unusual Gothic feel. Overall, a well-structured, surprising read.

50. The Name of the Rose--Umberto Eco

2006-12-27T19:53:00.000-06:00

I have owned a copy of The Name of the Rose for probably fifteen years, and I intended to read it many, many times, but my perception of it as an uber-intellectual novel kept me at a distance until now. Set in an Italian monastery in the fourteenth century, The Name of the Rose is both a murder mystery and a lesson in the history of the late medieval papacy. Mysterious deaths have occurred at the monastery and William of Baskerville, an English monk and scholar, is called by the abbot to lead an inquiry into the crimes in the hopes that he will find the killer or killers before the Pope's upcoming visit. William discovers that the murders involve the monastery's renowned but secret library and one book in particular so powerful that it leads to murder. The second storyline tells of the controversy within the medieval church between the wealthy church leadership and some of the monastic orders who pledged themselves to poverty. The two stories are told in alternate chapters. The chapters involving William's inquiry are page turners, and the chapters on the church controversy are, frankly, hard to get through, making the book something of a difficult read, but an excellent refresher in medieval history. Overall, the intrigue of the mystery kept me going and I really should challenge myself more with denser works like this one.

49. Winter's Bone--Daniel Woodrell

2006-12-27T19:13:00.000-06:00

Ree Dolly's father put up his family home and property in the rural Ozarks for bail on a meth charge. When he misses his court date, sixteen-year-old Ree, who is responsible for her two younger brothers and her mentally ill mother, must find him before the bondsman takes the family home, so she goes on a quest into the seedy underbelly of the bucolic Midwestern ideal. Woodrell tells of a world unknown to most of us, where families who have lived on the same land for generations still hunt to put food on the table and who make their money cooking crystal meth, the modern equivalent of moonshine. I grew up in the Missouri Ozarks, but I did not know an Ozarks like the one in Winter's Bone. Woodrell's use of language is incredible; the characters speak an antiquated and un-evolved English that is unlike anything I have ever heard or read, and this dialect seeps into the third person narrative, creating an utterly unique literary hybrid. Winter's Bone is one of the best books I've read this year and is at the top of my all-time favorites list. Great stuff.

Click here for an interesting article on Woodrell in the Riverfront Times.

48. Moral Disorder--Margaret Atwood

2006-12-12T21:09:00.000-06:00

Moral Disorder is a life told in stories (interestingly, quite similar in format to The Company She Keeps, reviewed below). In the first, Nell, the connective character, is a girl of eleven, knitting a layette for her mother's late-in-life baby. In the last, Nell cares for her dying mother. Atwood carries the reader through important passages in Nell's life--first love, independent young womanhood, settling down and creating home and family, downsizing, and finally caring for aging parents. Atwood exquisitely recounts the yearnings and struggles of each stage in Nell's life. This, I believe, is one of Atwood's greatest strengths as a writer--her ability to write incredibly affectingly by reminding the reader of personal and deep feelings and anxieties, but making the struggles seem at once universal and unique. Reading Atwood is a pleasure all should experience. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

47. The Company She Keeps--Mary McCarthy

2006-11-28T17:39:00.000-06:00

The Company She Keeps is the life of Margaret Sargeant told in short stories. Margaret, a cosmopolitan intellectual, lived a modern life in the 1930s as a single career woman with many interests, experiences, and lovers. I was struck most by the vibrant intellectual world portrayed in the novel. If you were an intellectual you were a Marxist and real debate was had on the various strains of Marxism and their political application in a period when communism still held promise. McCarthy has a distinctive voice that feels modern even today. This, McCarthy's first novel was controversial at its publication for its frank and open discussion of sex. But within that discussion, the work is also a cautionary tale. Margaret lived a fast life, twice married, and by the last story, she is marginalized as a childless, depressed woman. I really enjoyed The Company She Keeps and look forward to reading McCarthy's more popular and acclaimed works, The Group, and Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.

100 Notable Books of 2006

2006-11-27T21:37:00.001-06:00

The end-of-year making of lists is at once ridiculous (contrived, so subjective, and rarely comprehensive) and compelling (like a little, neatly-tied package). Regardless of your take on the practice, the time for end-of-year lists is upon us starting with the New York Times's publication of its annual list of 100 notable books of the year. I have read only 3 of the novels--Absurdistan, Arthur & George, and Terrorist--and none of the non-fiction. Of the books that came out this year that I have read, (only 6 or 7) I think Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone (review coming soon) deserved to make the list, but I am most certainly biased in favor of my fellow Missourian.

I'm looking forward to reading: The Keep (I've been on the library's wait list for ages! Please, someone, return it!), Eat the Document, and The Inheritance of Loss.

My curiosity is piqued by: Intuition, One Good Turn, Suite Francaise, and The Uses of Enchantment.

I will not be reading: Against the Day (I've successfully avoided Pynchon thus far--why start now?), Everyman (too depressing), The Road (too masculine), The Emperor's Children (too annoying), and Special Topics in Calamity Physics (we're bordering on Dave Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer hype here).

Comments on books on the list or books published this year that should have made the list?

Excused Absence

2006-11-26T11:39:00.000-06:00

Hi all. I've been out of pocket for a few weeks due to an unforseen event, but I've been reading and will post soon on The Company She Keeps, Moral Disorder, and Winter's Bone. Hope everyone had a happy turkey day!

46. Music for Torching--A.M. Homes

2006-10-29T17:19:00.000-06:00

Elaine and Paul are two middle-aged suburban parents who are both ridiculously unhappy: unhappy with each other, with their station in life, with their friends, their parents, even their kids. In the first pages of the book, Elaine and Paul set fire to their own house in an attempt to get out of their suburban malaise. In the aftermath of the "accident" their lives spin wildly out of control. Music for Torching is populated with bitterly unhappy, id-focused people, and it's clear that Homes finds suburbia stifling and suffocating.

I loved Homes's This Book Will Save Your Life. But where TBWSYL is eminently hopeful, Music for Torching is hopeless, and it ends with an unexpected and horrible tragedy. Despite its negative patina, I didn't hate Music for Torching, on the contrary, it was surprising and unexpected and it gave perspective on the inanity of our perceived cultural anxieties. It is indeed a mixed up world where the pain we cause ourselves distresses us more than truly tragic external harms.

45. Persepolis and Persepolis 2--Marjane Satrapi

2006-10-10T20:56:00.000-05:00

Persepolis is a "graphic autobiography" of Marjane Satrapi's coming of age during the Iranian revolution in 1979. Satrapi's westernized parents see the revolution as a chance for change from the controlling Shah, but become fearful for their homeland as Islamic extremists take over the country. Satrapi's simple (but not simplistic) drawings beautifully capture what it was like be forced under the veil from a child's point of view. The story ends with Satrapi's parents sending her to Europe for high school for her own safety and so she might gain a progressive world view not possible in oppressive Iran.

In Persepolis 2, Satrapi relates her life in Europe, and later of her return to Iran in the late 1980s. It is quite different in tone from Persepolis. While Persepolis is informed by the larger story of the revolution, Persepolis 2 is much more introspective and tells of Satrapi's self-focused adolescence. As a reader, you want to believe that because of the hardships she came through, she wouldn't fall prey to typical adolescent vices, but she does, and therein becomes a part of the western world. I am reluctant to pass judgment upon her though, because how on earth would I have fared having been removed from my home to fend for myself for four years from the age of 14? Not well. Overall, both books are excellent, and although short, manage to relate quite a lot about the recent political history of Iran. Oh, Persepolis was also a book club pick--good choice Katrina and Kate!

In my own state . . .

2006-10-07T09:52:00.000-05:00

This from Critical Mass on Marshall, Missouri, banning Alison Bechdel's Fun Home from its local library, considering it pornography. Personally, the most affecting panel in the book was one depicting the truck that hit and killed her father. I'm sure that a graphic novel in which a man and a woman kiss would be just fine, you know, encouraging heterosexual values and all. I've seen more lurid drawings in X-Men comics. Sheesh.

44. The Robber Bride--Margaret Atwood

2006-10-07T09:23:00.000-05:00

I'm becoming more technically savvy, so now you can judge a book by its cover, if you are so inclined.

How is it possible for a mere mortal like me to describe a work of Margaret Atwood? Her prose is superb and she can craft a story, but her brilliance to me is her ability to include feminist themes and ideas in thought-provoking ways. The Robber Bride is the story of three middle-aged female friends whose common bond is past experience with a hateful and destructive woman, Zenia, who lied to, stole from, and cheated each of them. When Zenia reappears after a number of years, each character recounts the pain Zenia caused and vows that she will not deceive and manipulate again. Feminism informs all of Atwood's work (see The Handmaid's Tale), and here Atwood questions the "evil" woman most of us have experienced. What breaks up the sisterhood? Are women our own worst enemies?* This one will have you thinking.

*A shoutout to Sarah for her insightful comments on the book!

43. A Long Way Down--Nick Hornby

2006-10-04T20:32:00.000-05:00

Four distraught Londoners meet atop "Toppers House" on New Years Eve, each intending not to see the new year. They manage to talk each other out of jumping and make a pact to meet again on Valentine's Day. A number of odd adventures ensue and by the end, each of the four, with group support, make positive changes in their lives. That retelling of the basic plot makes it seem so contrived, and it is rather far-fetched. In less capable hands the story could have been a disaster, but for Hornby it works. You believe that these four people who would never have met under other circumstances, do help each other through difficult times. The story is recounted by each individual and Hornby deftly uses the form to quite hilarious results, despite the somber circumstances under which the characters meet. Overall, a light and entertaining read.

42. A Disorder Peculiar to the Country--Ken Kalfus

2006-09-19T20:11:00.000-05:00

The reader meets Joyce and Marshall, an NYC couple enduring an acrimonious divorce, on the morning of September 11, 2001. Each believes that the other fell victim to the terrorist attacks and each is secretly relieved. But both survive, and the divorce continues against a post-9/11 backdrop as the traumas of the attacks are played out against the traumas of the divorce.

Kalfus knows of anger. He writes of the self-destructive lengths to which people will go in order to perpetuate animosity. This is not an uplifting novel, but an interesting one in that it explores fear and anger on levels societal, individual, and relational.

41. The Dog of the Marriage--Amy Hempel

2006-09-18T21:55:00.000-05:00

The Dog of the Marriage is a superb little book of short stories. Amy Hempel's elegant and evocative prose is like poetry. Here is an example:

"I see the viewfinder swing wide across the lawn, one of those panning shots you always find in movies, where the idea is to get everybody in the audience ready for what will presently be revealed--but only if everybody will just be very very good, and very very patient, and will wait, with perfect hope, for the make-believe story to unfold."

I'm looking forward to picking up another of her collections.

40. Prodigal Summer--Barbara Kingsolver

2006-09-12T21:53:00.000-05:00

**Book Club Pick** I believe I'm becoming a crotchety old woman because I didn't really like this one either. To save time, here are the elements of the plot: three women, moths, coyotes, chestnut trees, and the mountains of Kentucky. Prodigal Summer is a very well-structured novel. The stories of the three women are intertwined just enough for the parallels of their lives to be obvious but not overt, and their stories aren't wrapped up too neatly, which always bothers me.

As for plot, though, I'm reminded of the Catherine MacKinnon essay where she talks about the two dominant approaches to feminism as being like point and counter-point in a chorale, with the sopranos singing, "we are the same, we are the same" and the altos singing "we are different, we are different," and neither one of them getting anywhere, and neither one sufficient in explaining the practical problems women face. Prodigal Summer is clearly in the "we are different" camp.

Weird. As I'm writing this, though, I'm realizing that Kingsolver had this whole emphasis on biological/gender determinism, but the three main characters were involved in very masculine pursuits and were faced with their own biology as outside of their experiences in the novel. Crap, she's not in the "we are different" camp, she's in both camps. We totally should have discussed this at book club . . .

39. Absurdistan--Gary Shteyngart

2006-09-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

Misha Vainberg, an obese melancholic, is the son of the 1,238th wealthiest man in Russia. Stuck in St. Petersburg, unable to return to the New York City he yearns for, Misha goes to the struggling former Soviet republic of Absurdistan hoping to obtain a doctored Belgian passport, and gets stuck in the middle of a civil war.

I didn't love this satire. I just didn't find funny the parts of American culture that Shteyngart skewers, because they are so disturbing. That American cultural exports are hip-hop, designer jeans, and perfume stores, just doesn't strike me as funny, and the idea that non-Americans struggle to obtain these things while being unable to feed themselves is not something to make fun of, but something to be ashamed of. We are a rich, obese, self-centered nation. Is our only legacy unbridled materialism? God help us.

38. Kingdom Coming--Michelle Goldberg

2006-08-28T21:09:00.000-05:00

As I said earlier, The Ruins was pretty scary, but by far the most frightening book I've read recently is Michelle Goldberg's Kingdom Coming. Goldberg explains the theology behind the political movement she dubs "Christian nationalism," and how a small group of important players within evangelical Christianity are working to turn America into a theocracy. Make no mistake, the people to whom she refers seek nothing short of dominion. They have created a revisionist history where separation of church and state is a myth. In their world view, science is expendable and discrimination in the name of God is not only acceptable, but encouraged. Goldberg makes the point that Christian nationalists are far from becoming a political majority, and in fact don't even represent the majority of Christians, but they have been able to use a series of political wedge issues to get their chosen candidates (exclusively Republicans) elected. Kingdom Coming does get a bit heavy-handed in its comparisons between Christian nationalism and Nazism, but some of the quotes from Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism are chilling. Anyone who values a tolerant society should read this book.

37. Mockingbird--Charles J. Shields

2006-08-24T20:17:00.000-05:00

Charles J. Shields wrote this biography of Nelle Harper Lee without ever speaking to her--she refused. So, he interviewed hundreds of people who knew her throughout the years and used those observations to fashion a story of how To Kill a Mockingbird came to be and why Lee never wrote another book. He dispels the myth that Truman Capote wrote or at least contributed to TKAM, and emphasizes Lee's contribution to Capote's In Cold Blood.

Mockingbird received a number of bad reviews. There was a consensus that Shields spent too much time on unnecessary background detail, and that it was a mistake to write the book without talking to Lee. I agree to a certain extent; the picture of Lee is still a bit blurry. But to his credit, Shields anticipated this criticism. In the introduction he lamented his inability to speak to Lee herself, but stated that he wanted to go forward with the book so that he might have the opportunity to talk to many of Lee's contemporaries while they were still alive. A bit morbid, perhaps, but I appreciate Shield's efforts. Who doesn't want to know more about the elusive Harper Lee? Overall, the book sheds much light on the environment that brought about TKAM, although it doesn't successfully answer the question of why Lee never wrote another book. Still, I enjoyed it a great deal.

36. The Ruins--Scott Smith

2006-08-17T21:43:00.000-05:00

Two young American couples on a three week vacation in Mexico spend days on the beach and evenings getting drunk. They meet a trio of Greeks and a German and decide it might be fun to explore some nearby ruins. Then things start to get ugly. And creepy. I won't give any more detail in case you want to read this, because its best moments are in figuring out what you don't know.

I'm not opposed to the horror genre; I've had my moments with Stephen King. I picked this one specifically because Smith's A Simple Plan (made into a movie starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bill Paxton, and Bridget Fonda) is considered a cult classic by some. The first half of The Ruins was quite suspenseful, and I kept thinking it was building up to something really scary, but then the plot lost steam for me. The suspenseful turns weren't exciting enough, the story dragged, and some of the parts that were supposed to be scary seemed ridiculous. Maybe I should have read it in one sitting. I don't know. The bigger problem for me, though, is that the novel reads like a screenplay. I'm sure it will make a decent horror film, but as a reader, I felt shortchanged. It was scary enough, however, to keep me up for about twenty minutes after I normally would have fallen asleep. That's something.

35. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince--J.K. Rowling

2006-08-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

Devastating . . .

34. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--J.K. Rowling

2006-08-07T20:37:00.000-05:00

Harry, now in his fifth year at Hogwart's, deals with the Ministry of Magic's refusal to accept the inevitable in the form of Dolores Umbridge who joins the faculty at Hogwart's and makes life for the students unbearable.

33. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep--Philip K. Dick

2006-07-23T21:46:00.000-05:00

I am not normally a reader of science fiction, but a good friend has recommended Philip K. Dick numerous times, and I decided to give him a try. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is a perplexing novel that raises many questions and, frustratingly, answers none. So, here's what I got from the book, it is probably wildly incorrect mind you, but here goes. We as humans have methods of differentiating ourselves from each other, inter alia, by appearance, by association, by intellect, and we have developed a complex set of justifications for unequal treatment based on these perceived differences. We use religion as part of the justification, which makes religion false, but necessary. Both the presence and absence of nature remind us of our manufactured criteria, and alienate us from our true selves. As a result, we trust nothing and no one. Pretty bleak, I know, but I have yet to read of a post-apocalyptic utopia. This is heady stuff, and if you are prone to searching for deeper meaning, this book could send you into a tailspin. Read it with caution.

32. The Man of My Dreams--Curtis Sittenfeld

2006-07-23T21:13:00.000-05:00

The Man of My Dreams tells the story of Hannah Gavener, the child of an ugly marriage, as she matures and sets out to meet the title man of her dreams. Hannah's family issues, low self-esteem, and misjudgment of others lead to ups and downs in her romantic life.

I loved Prep, Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel that met with much critical success, including being named by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2005. So, I was looking forward to reading The Man of My Dreams, despite its chick lit title. Although I wasn't disappointed in TMoMD, part of what made Prep so wonderful to me was missing from TMoMD. Both novels were told from the perspective of sensitive, introspective young women, but Prep, set at a tony boarding school, and told by a middle-class outsider, provided a great deal of social commentary on wealth and privilege that had broader implications than the limited setting. Sittenfeld is brilliant at internal dialogue and she's one to watch out for in the future. But, if you're looking to read something from her, I definitely recommend Prep over this one.

31. The Namesake--Jhumpa Lahiri

2006-07-17T22:33:00.000-05:00

Gogol Ganguli begins life without a name. In Bengali tradition, he was to be named by his great grandmother, who sent a letter bearing his name from Calcutta to his parents in Boston, but the letter never arrived. The hospital wouldn't allow baby boy Ganguli to leave without a name, so his parents gave him the informal name Gogol, after the author whose works had great meaning for his father. Before he starts school, his parents finally pick a formal name for him, Nikhil, but his kindergarten teacher insists on calling him Gogol, and the name sticks, despite his parents wishes. As he matures, the ambivalence he feels about his unusual and distinctly non-Indian name reflects his complex, mercurial feelings toward his family and heritage.

The Namesake is primarily a story of a child of immigrants trying to find his place within American society, but more broadly, it is a universal story of personal independence in the face of family expectations. Lahiri, winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her short story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies, has a gentle and distinctive literary voice. All in all, an enjoyable read.

30. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--J.K. Rowling

2006-07-10T22:07:00.000-05:00

The first three books of the series are, for the most part, light-hearted and sweet, but it's getting darker in the wizard world. Forces are aligning. Serious things are happening to Harry. He's growing up and is starting to realize his power. What evil lurks around the next corner?

29. This Book Will Save Your Life--A.M. Homes

2006-07-10T21:58:00.000-05:00

This Book Will Save Your Life begins with Richard Novak, a wealthy Los Angeleno, having a health scare that sends him to the emergency room. The trauma causes Richard to look at the world and his outward success differently and he begins to make connections with the people he encounters--the man who sells him donuts, a woman he sees crying in the produce section, a neighbor he had never talked to--and with the people that he has spent a great deal of his adult life trying to avoid--his parents, his brother, his ex-wife, and the son he abandoned. By trying to pay just a bit more attention to what is going on around him, Richard's life changes dramatically.

I loved this book--one of my favorites of this year so far. It's quirky, has a weird title, but is unexpectedly uplifting. It makes you believe that small changes of perception can lead to big experiences. My highest recommendation.

28. A Girl Named Zippy--Haven Kimmel

2006-06-29T21:58:00.000-05:00

**Book Club Pick** A Girl Named Zippy is the perfect summer read--quick, light, and funny. Haven Kimmel sweetly relates stories of her family and of an outstanding cast of supporting characters (and animals) in tiny Mooreland, Indiana in the 1970s. The tales feature the innocence and poignance of childhood lessons learned and the unconditional love of family. Overall, an uplifting memoir.

27. Terrorist--John Updike

2006-06-28T21:32:00.000-05:00

I probably wouldn't have read Terrorist right away (it was released at the beginning of June) except that I walked into the library at the exact moment Charles (World's Greatest Librarian) was first putting it out on the shelf. It's my first Updike experience. I'm also not sure I would recognize his literary superiority from only this read. It is well-written, no doubt, but the characters, once introduced, play predictable roles, and you can pretty accurately predict the climax of the story from just looking at the cover. However, to me, this work is significant because Updike has touched on something all but ignored post-9/11. Namely, to attempt to understand what about our culture is held to be so detestable by those who wish us harm. Instead, we puffed out our chests, said "thanks, but no thanks" to the rest of the world, and set upon a course that may lead to truly disastrous consequences for our nation. No leadership encouraged introspection; instead we were told to go out and spend. These two responses reinforce what is already loathsome about us. Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't be proud as a nation, that we should go about collectively mea culpaing. But pride, hubris, that isn't tempered with a little humility, compassion, and understanding is a dangerous thing. You might want to reference your favorite Greek tragedy if you need a reminder. I don't know if Updike intended all of what I got out of the book. But I do think that he was motivated by an attempt to understand the mentality of this hatred, and this is an obvious strength of the work.

26. The Stone Diaries--Carol Shields

2006-06-25T21:23:00.000-05:00

The Stone Diaries, winner of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize, is a fictional autobiography (complete with photos) of Daisy Stone Goodwill Flett. Daisy's life (she was born in 1905) and experiences parallel the stereotypical experience of the twentieth-century woman. At each era, Shields deals with the taboos and choices women faced, examining the issues as experienced by Daisy or another female character in the work. From death in childbirth and the stigma of divorce at the beginning of the century, to the difficulties of child rearing, work outside the home, and even women's liberation, the stories told run the gamut of common female experience. Men are secondary characters, some good, some bad, and some merely baffling, but all only tangential to the stories of the women. Overall a good read. Would make an excellent book club pick.

Here's to the Descendants of Fred & Gladys

2006-06-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

I've gotten behind in posting because of a family reunion over the weekend. Had a wonderful time reconnecting with my cousins, comparing family neuroses, and laughing. Let's do it again soon guys!

25. Veronica--Mary Gaitskill

2006-06-11T13:54:00.000-05:00

In Veronica, Alison, an aging model, whose body is wracked with pain and disease, looks back on her life in snapshots, as if she is flipping through a portfolio of memories. In her prime, Alison was beautiful and flawed. She related to the world with vanity, but also with a vague sadness and misunderstanding. She tells her stories as if her life is over in her 40s, which I guess for Alison, it is. The most telling of the flashbacks involve the title character, Veronica. Alison dislikes her and begrudgingly befriends her, but after Veronia finds out she has AIDS, Alison, out of both pity and self-aggrandizement, becomes one of the few friends to help her through the disease. The friendship has a shiny, photograpic quality, even as it deals with the fleshy horrors of AIDS. And Veronica, though the title character, is quite one-dimensional, relfecting the shallowness of Alison's view of her. Gaitskill's prose is beautiful and haunting. The reader is forced to look at the ugly side of physical beauty and the end-of-life sadness of a life lived, literally, in vain. This is not an uplifting book, but one that sheds light our cultural obsession with youth and beauty like nothing else I've read. I highly recommend it.

Critical Mass finds the Rest of the Best

2006-06-06T07:54:00.000-05:00

The folks at Critical Mass polled the writers who nominated books for the New York Times Best American Novel of the Last 25 years to try to find the titles that received only one vote (the Times' list included only titles that received at least two votes). John Irving voted for himself (Cider House Rules), but gave props to both Updike and Roth. They are continuing to compile their list of who-voted-for-what. To me, it's interesting to see which writers chose which books--it's like literary voyeurism.

24. Chronicles, Volume One--Bob Dylan

2006-06-02T10:48:00.000-05:00

What American of the last half-century has been more deified than Bob Dylan? The proof is in all the little Dylans running around out there. They ain't named after Dylan Thomas, dig? I myself have considered Dylan a God dating back to my adolescent Dylan phase. So, how appropriate it is that this book is really Dylan, demystified. Dylan, in his own words, steps down off the pedestal and becomes human (which he was, of course, all along). He takes the reader through his musical development, naming his inspirations, describing his songwriting and album-making process, and talks about being cast as the voice of a generation, a mantle he didn't ask for. He heartbreakingly recounts the backlash against him in the late 1960s when he was accused of abandoning the movement which he was asked, repeatedly, although he refused, to lead. Also, turns out Dylan can write. Did I really think this poet couldn't? As the Beats, no doubt, influenced the folk music revival of which Dylan was a part, Dylan pays them back in his spare, lean, Kerouac-like prose. Much like many of his early songs, Dylan makes his life seem like the story of a man, like any other. Amazing.

23. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--Roald Dahl

2006-05-27T15:03:00.000-05:00

I've been having so much trouble getting through The Untouchable, that I've been picking up other things to read as a distraction. This one was nice, as it's short enough to read in a couple of hours. If you've seen the movie, you know the story. Overall, a wonderful children's book and a nice addition to Ben's library.

22. King Dork--Frank Portman

2006-05-22T20:15:00.000-05:00

This book is so hot right now, I have to hold it with an oven mitt. Everywhere I go I see references to King Dork and how it is the best young adult book written, since, well, ever. Tom Henderson, self-dubbed King Dork, navigates the treacherous waters of the average American high school, trying to avoid beatings by the school bullies and striking Holden Caulfieldesque looks in class to impress the teachers belonging to the Catcher-in-the-Rye cult. Along the way he has his first sexual encounter and delves into the mystery of his father's death. I gotta say, King Dork is a funny book with many, many laugh-out-loud moments. Portman gets so many things right--the transcendence of rock 'n roll, the absurd, irrelevant teacher/administrator, the social hierarchy of the American high school. There is a section of the book about Tom's English class and a unit on vocabulary that so perfectly describes my memories of my 9th grade English class with Mr. S (in all fairness, shouldn't say his name). I swear, Portman must have been in my class.

My only problem with this book is that Tom is a little bit too precocious for a 14-year-old. He is so observant, smart, and witty, but also so unaffected by everything that is happening to him, that he seems more like an adult remembering his own adolescence. For that reason I think it may appeal more to an adult than a teenager. I could be wrong. Kids may love King Dork. But it doesn't really matter. It is a great read for anyone who is looking back (or experiencing) adolescence with confusion, longing, wonder, and cynicism.

21. The Last of Her Kind--Sigrid Nunez

2006-05-11T19:31:00.000-05:00

In The Last of Her Kind, Georgette George (that's right) from a working-class family and Dooley Ann Drayton, a child of privilege, meet as freshmen at Barnard College in the late 1960s and develop a friendship fueled by casual drug use and anti-war radicalism. Both drop out of Barnard after two years and take different paths. Georgette enters the world of publishing and Ann (she drops the family name Dooley because of its ties to slavery) becomes a full-time radical. Although the plot centers on Georgette, as narrator, Ann is the most compelling character in the story. Ann takes the ideals of hippie culture--anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalism, and racial equality--with deliberate seriousness and refuses to live her life in opposition to any of them. Ann ultimately commits murder to defend these ideals, and is sentenced to life in prison where she devotes herself, to her own detriment, to improving the lives of the incarcerated.

I wasn't expecting this book to go there, and it hit so very close to home. Not only because of my legal practice, but also, because of my own idealism. I am frequently accused of being too idealistic. I've always been willing to accept the disappointment that comes out of the dissonance between ideals and reality. I'd rather be idealistic, with something positive to hope for, than cynical. In fact, I've never even considered it criticism to be accused of being idealistic. But in Ann I see the utter selfishness in selfless idealism; I see why the term idealism has its pejorative edge. I don't think I'm at a great risk of becoming Ann, and I'd still rather be accused of being idealistic than a host of other flaws, but there's a lesson there--one I wasn't expecting.

Best American Novel of the Last 25 Years

2006-05-11T07:52:00.000-05:00

The New York Times asked 125 prominent living writers to name the best American novel of the last 25 years. The winner: Toni Morrison's Beloved. The Runners-up: 2) Don DeLillo's Underworld, 3) Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, 4) John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels (Rabbit at Rest, Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit Redux, Rabbit, Run), and 5) Philip Roth's American Pastoral. Do you agree?

I'm totally getting to Underworld, right after the next Harry Potter . . .

Me Love Cookies

2006-05-05T13:26:00.000-05:00

20. The Plot Against America--Philip Roth

2006-05-04T22:23:00.000-05:00

**Book Club Pick** This was my second attempt at Roth. I tried to read Portnoy's Complaint several years ago, and even with the understanding that Portnoy was a caricature, a composite of the worst of maleness, and supposed to be funny, I just did not enjoy it at all. I couldn't get past the sex obsession and objectification. So I came to The Plot Against America with a serious amount of trepidation, only to find my worries were needless. The Plot Against America is excellent and not at all sex-obsessed, although Roth's issues with women can be found if you're looking for them.

The Plot Against America is an "alternate" history of mid-20th century America. Roth begins with the premise that Charles Lindbergh, a known, or at least suspected anti-semite (and there is historical proof for this), receives the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1940 and goes on to defeat FDR on an anti-war platform. Lindbergh's victory sends Jewish-Americans, and in particular the Roth family of Newark, New Jersey, into crisis. Eight-year-old Philip Roth narrates his family's attempts to deal with a growing anti-semitic climate. TPAA speaks volumes about today's political environment, whether Roth intended that or not, but it also speaks to the experience of the "other" in American society. In short, it is brilliant, and one of my favorite books of the last few years.

19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--J.K. Rowling

2006-04-25T08:03:00.000-05:00

Ack! I'm getting behind in posting. Things have been hectic for the past couple of weeks, but I'm still reading. I had planned to pace myself with the Harry Potters, interspersing them with more "serious" fiction, but when the UPS man delivered this one and the next, I put down what I was reading (The Best People in the World, which I subsequently had to take back to the library), tore open the package, and jumped right in. In this one Harry, Hermione, and Ron, along with their new and helpful professor Lupin, confront he-who-must-not-be-named's former second in command, Sirius Black. Good Stuff.

18. The Brief History of the Dead--Kevin Brockmeier

2006-04-16T15:46:00.000-05:00

The Brief History of the Dead is set in a city inhabited by the recently dead who stay there as long as someone on earth remembers them. All the notable characters in the story are connected by one living being on earth, Laura Byrd, who is struggling to survive in the Antarctica.

Let me just say, wow. This is one of the most imaginative novels I have read. Brockmeier creates a version of the afterlife, and he tackles the biggest questions of existence. Do we have a common destiny after life on earth? What does it mean to be "alive." Does being alive in someone's memory have inherent value? Can it affect you in the afterlife? Brockmeier also creates a terrestrial dystopia where corporations use global warming and fear of terrorist attacks to sell their products. It is interesting to juxtapose this idea that we have made mistakes and have gone too far technologically against the universal questions of existence. Overall, an excellent read. I give it my highest recommendation.

17. The Good Life--Jay McInerney

2006-04-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

The Good Life tells the story of two flawed (and wealthy) New York City couples, Luke and Sasha and Russell and Corinne. The novel opens at the end of summer 2001, with Luke, a former investment banker who recently quit his job at mid-life, discovering that his wife Sasha, former model and middle-aged socialite, has been having an affair with a very wealthy and high-profile entrepreneur. Downtown, Russell, an editor at a publishing house, and his wife Corinne, a former lawyer and current stay-at-home mom, are faring no better as they deal with raising children and a busy social life. Each of their lives are dramatically changed on September 11. For the rest of the novel, McInerney explores the emotional ramifications of 9/11 for each of the four characters.

This is my first McInerney. I never read Bright Lights, Big City. I was too young to have read it when it came out, and later a story of the wealth and indulgence of the 1980s just didn't hold much appeal. I've read more than once that McInerney is a modern-day Fitzgerald and I see obvious parallels. And the guy is talented. He treats the flawed characters with so much sensitivity that you have sympathy for each at the same time you loathe their behavior. I'm not sure about the infidelity-as-redemption theme, but I guess it has its place in a desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures sort of way.

McInerney dealt with the event very well. And this type of cathartive literature is necessary, I think, for our collective literary conscience. I mean, 9/11 affected everyone in the whole country, but especially those in New York, and we as a country are still dealing (or not dealing) with the ramifications of the attack on our future. More specifically, we have all had to deal with the emotional effects of 9/11. I don't live in New York, but since 9/11 I have felt a greater sense of unease with the larger world and I actually look back on the pre-9/11 world with nostaligia. It's something I can almost feel. McInerney was able to put down on the page this feeling of discomfort. McInerney (along with Ian McEwan's Saturday) have set a very high standard for literature that deals with 9/11.

16. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time--Mark Haddon

2006-04-04T17:36:00.000-05:00

There were things I liked about Curious Incident and things I didn't. I think it is difficult for an author to write in an entirely different voice than his or her own (in this case, of an autistic teenager), and I respect the effort. I'm also impressed with Haddon's skills in maths. But, I didn't totally buy it, the voice that is. It felt gimmicky. Like Rain Man (and don't get me started on the actor-playing-impaired-person-and-winning-Oscar rant). Also, even though a lot of people I respect read and liked it, I can't get over the Today Show book club business. I have the same thing with Oprah. There's something so off-putting about the corporate placement of a book on a TV show, not picked for its artistic merit, but for its marketability. I just don't want too much capitalism mixed in with my literature, thank you very much. This, of course, makes me a hypocrite for really liking, loving actually, some books that fit that description. So be it. If you read it, do so with a dose of skepticism.

15. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets--J.K. Rowling

2006-04-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

Really, these Harry Potter books are just too good. They are imaginative, playful, and empowering. Rowling has created a magnificent world where you root for good and boo at evil. And how can my inner (or is it outer?) nerd resist a female lead character who spends her free time in the library with her nose in a book? I wish Harry Potter would have been around when I was a kid. *sigh*

14. Arthur & George--Julian Barnes

2006-03-28T20:55:00.000-06:00

Julian Barnes started with two historical figures, the well-known Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the little-known George Edalji, and gave them a back story. The result is Arthur & George, a tale set at the turn of the last century in England. When Arthur, having achieved success and wealth as an author, crosses paths with George, a Birmingham solicitor, a real-life Sherlock Holmes-worthy mystery emerges. Barnes manages to make this 100 year old story feel very modern by touching on current themes of race, class, and justice. I kept thinking about the bigger issues in modern terms. Perhaps the point is that despite our technological progress, we have yet to successfully solve these moral issues. Or not. Regardless, Barnes is a superb writer. His spare and elegant prose reminds me of Ian McEwan. For both I need to keep a dictionary close by. Arthur & George also boasts one of the coolest book websites ever. Check it out, it even has a matching game.

13. Never Mind the Pollacks--Neal Pollack

2006-03-21T19:25:00.000-06:00

I love the rock and roll biography. Sharon remembers to this day my not allowing her to leave my apartment until I had finished reading aloud a passage from a book on the Beatles, and more recent co-workers were shocked over an incident with the Anthony Kiedis autobiography and an appellate brief. It is no wonder, then, that I loved Never Mind the Pollacks, the hilarious fictional biography of fictional Neal Pollack, rock critic (not to be confused with the present-day-living-and-breathing Neal Pollack who wrote the novel). At the age of ten, Neal Pollack offered his first piece of rock criticism to Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee: "if you listen to black music, in my opinion, you can hear, like Walt Whitman kind of said, the real America singing." After that, Neal Pollack discovered Elvis (who ran over Pollack's dad with a truck), hung out with Bob Dylan, fell in love with Joan Baez, angered the Rolling Stones, shot heroin with Lou Reed, corrupted Iggy Pop, played bass as the elusive "fifth Ramone," slept with Patti Smith, encouraged Bruce Springsteen, withstood a beating by Henry Rollins and Black Flag, and played father figure to Kurt Cobain. All the while, spending money and doing drugs and writing rock criticism. Pollack (the real one) is a brilliant satirist, and one of the funniest writers I've ever read. For the first time in my life, I had to put a book down because I was laughing so hard I couldn't read. Pollack has absorbed rock history and channels Lester Bangs and Hunter S. Thompson. Forget Clapton. Pollack is God!

12. The Thin Place--Kathryn Davis

2006-03-16T15:03:00.000-06:00

I am perplexed as to how to describe the plot of the rich and magical The Thin Place. It is a book whose value is in language, imagery, and form. This is not to say that it does not have a plot, but plot here is secondary to language. Set in a fictional small town, and with an ensemble cast, The Thin Place delves into universal experience and feeling to advance the stories of existence and death. Many characters--the young, the old, even animals and plants--are given voice and tell of a spiritual ecosystem that exists beyond the awareness of the participants. Kathryn Davis has created her own language and that language is the only one through which the stories can be told. The Thin Place is a novel to be savored and absorbed.

11. Wickett's Remedy--Myla Goldberg

2006-03-07T07:33:00.000-06:00

I looked forward to reading this one as I loved Goldberg’s debut novel, Bee Season. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed with Wickett’s Remedy. Set in early 20th century Boston, the story consists of two parts, only tenuously connected by the main character, Lydia. Lydia, from an Irish immigrant family, marries well-bred medical student and businessman Henry Wickett. The first part of the novel tells of their courtship and early marriage and of Henry’s unusual entrepreneurial efforts. After Henry’s unexpected death, Lydia returns to South Boston to live with her family. Her return coincides with the influenza epidemic of 1918. Out of the pain and helplessness associated with her personal losses, Lydia decides to become a nurse. Her experiences helping influenza victims make up the second half of the novel. Lydia doesn’t really figure into the subplot, which involves the successes of Henry’s business partner (told from a modern-day perspective), making the subplot's very presence awkward. The text is supplemented by what I guess you would call side notes–like footnotes, but printed in the margin, kind of like a textbook. It was odd and quirky to have them in the novel, and although they have a clever literary purpose, they were a bit distracting, as you had to stop the flow of the narrative to read them. If you read them too early, at the beginning of the page say, they wouldn’t make sense.

It is disappointing when an author like Goldberg, with a unique point of view, has structural problems. It shows how difficult it is to create a good novel, even for an objectively good "writer." I’ve been lucky to have recently read several very well-structured novels. In juxtaposition to On Beauty and Kafka on the Shore, Wickett’s Remedy just doesn’t hold up. Still, I look forward to Goldberg’s next offering.

2006-03-06T11:05:00.000-06:00

Ahem.

TRUMAN CAPOTE DID NOT WRITE TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

Thank you.

10. Kafka on the Shore--Haruki Murakami

2006-02-28T22:12:00.000-06:00

Fifteen-year-old Kafka Tamura runs away from his difficult father in Tokyo, lives in hotels, and eventually a library, in part to escape an oedipal curse. He falls in love for the first time and makes friends along the way who help him mature and deal with his troubles. That's the basic plot, but there is much more--talking cats, anthropomorphic inanimate objects, and souls inhabiting different bodies and fleeing to otherworldly planes where they can commune with the dead. I haven't been exposed to a lot of Eastern literature, and I have to admit, the mysticism was hard to wrap my unenlightened western mind around. I like it from Amy Tan and really like the magical realism of Latin American lit, but I had more trouble relating to it here. What I did like about Kafka on the Shore, and specifically the mysticism, is its very open way of looking at the spiritual world. Judeo-Christian eschatology, in comparison, seems linear and polarized. The characters in Kafka on the Shore are well-developed, and Kafka in particular possesses a beyond-his-years wisdom, but it works, given the concept that one soul inhabits many human bodies. Overall a good read, and a stretch for my western world view.

9. In Cold Blood*--Truman Capote

2006-02-23T07:57:00.000-06:00

I have been trying to write a review of In Cold Blood since Saturday, and I am so daunted at the prospect of writing about one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. How can my piddling, insignificant blog entry every do Capote justice? The man is the master of the language (see, it sounds insipid and hollow). So, I'm just going to suggest that everyone check out or buy this book and enjoy the indescribable Capote. Oh, and while you're at it, pick up his life-long best friend Harper Lee's book To Kill A Mockingbird. You won't regret it.

*Approved by the women-of-Skinker-DeBaliviere-plus-Nancy

8. Never Let Me Go--Kazuo Ishiguro

2006-02-13T20:58:00.000-06:00

SPOILER ALERT: It is going to be difficult to discuss this novel without giving away the plot to potential readers. So, if you intend to read this one and desire to have an unspoilt literary experience, please avert your eyes.

What would it be like to be the product of genetic engineering? Would you have the same feelings and desires as "regular" people? Would you have a soul? These are the questions posed in Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. The novel begins with Kathy H., the narrator, telling of her experiences growing up at Halisham, what appears to be a private school in the English countryside. In a brilliant stroke of storytelling, the reader learns the fate of the children at Halisham at the same pace as the characters in the story. The children are never given the information directly that they are clones, but from an early age they are told bits and pieces about their futures and places in society. The reader doesn't learn the specifics of the project until the end of the book, and even then, many details are left unexplained.

However, the novel does not intend primarily to illuminate scientific and interrelated moral questions. It is more about the universal quandary of existence. It is about being a second-class citizen. It is about knowing one's fate, learning to deal with it, and trying to make the best of one's lot in life. As higher mammals with developed frontal lobes, we are cursed with the knowledge that we are mortal and that there is an end to our existence. The characters in Never Let Me Go know this, and they accept their fate and eventual "completion." But unlike us, they also know how they will meet their demise. Can life be well-lived despite this knowledge? Ishiguro, I believe, says yes, there is meaning in the living.

Quote of the day

2006-02-11T15:09:00.000-06:00

"A good novel is an out-of-self experience. It lifts you off the ground so that you have the sensation of flying. It says, Look at the world around you; learn from the people in these pages, neither quite me nor quite you, how life is lived in so many different ways. A memoir says, Look at me; learn from me how one life has been lived. That solipsistic focus has its place; it, too, can move and inspire, but only fiction can give us faith that we all have the imaginative capability to understand any number of stories not our own, especially the stories of people who never would or could write a memoir."

Julia Glass in a New York Times editorial asking "why have we have forsaken the novel for the memoir?"

7. The Tender Bar--J.R. Moehringer

2006-02-07T12:03:00.000-06:00

For a three or four year period in my twenties I spent practially every waking hour at a bar. I loved that bar. Friendships were cemented and lost there. I celebrated weddings and cried over deaths. I ate there, drank there, fell in love there. It was my church. Yes, it was a place of vice, and that lure wore off for me at some point, but I still look back with longing at the place and the people it brought together. I have yet to meet someone who loves books as much as Lew, and I know some serious booklovers. I will never forget George's loud mouth or Tom's condescending charm. And seriously, did I ever really understand anything Oliver was saying?

J.R. Moehringer describes this love of place and persons in The Tender Bar. Abandoned by his father, a radio announcer he knew only as "The Voice," Moehringer grew up searching for a father figure. Many men influenced his life, but none more than the employees and patrons of a Long Island bar. As a boy, Moehringer's Uncle Charlie, a bartender, and his friends took him to the beach and to baseball games. And when he came of age, they welcomed him into their world of self-affirming highs and degenerate lows. Part well-spun story of community and the way people care for and influence each other, and part cautionary tale, The Tender Bar had me laughing and remembering.

Quote of the day

2006-02-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

"At this point in her career, Margaret Atwood is so revered that she could write a shopping list and someone would slap an award on it."

Yvonne Zipp in a Christian Science Monitor review of Atwood's recently released The Tent.

6. On Beauty--Zadie Smith

2006-01-31T09:51:00.000-06:00

Three things made me want to dislike this book before I had even begun to read it: 1) the author's jacket photo, 2) the hype surrounding the book, and 3) the fact that I got bored one third of the way through White Teeth. Now, I'm not saying that first one as a jealous hag, but because writers, as a lot, are not pretty people. Zadie Smith is an exception, and I feared that your average book critic viewed 1) a bit too much, leading to 2) and ultimately for the reader to 3), in a Zadie Smith dialectic of sorts.

I have now read the book, however, and I must admit that the hype is based on merit, not a jacket photo (perhaps am jealous hag). On Beauty is a complex novel, with well-developed characters and tight intricacies of plot. It tells the story of two families, the Belseys and the Kippses, who are at once rivals and intimately involved. The Belseys consist of Howard, a white Englishman and art history professor, his wife Kiki, an African-American hospital administrator, and their three children, Jerome, Zora, and Levi. The Kippses are Monty, an English-bred Haitian and conservative scholar who has played foil to Howard in both his academic and political life, Monty's wife Carlene, also Haitian, and a traditional homemaker fiercely subservient to her husband, and their two children, the seductive Victoria and absent Michael. The transatlantic enmity between Howard and Monty grows into outright conflict when Monty begins a year as a visiting professor at Wellington, the east-coast American college where Howard teaches.

On Beauty is a post-postmodern novel, international in scope, and involving themes and variations on race, class, gender, and politics. Zadie Smith is an unusually skilled craftswoman of language and structure (although she, admittedly, borrowed the basic framework from E.M. Forster). I cannot say that OB is one of my favorite novels, but I recognize its quality, perhaps greatness.

2006-01-30T13:23:00.000-06:00

I changed the blog settings so anyone can comment. You shouldn't have to sign in to do so. Discuss!

Were fat people involved?

2006-01-30T12:16:00.000-06:00

Garrison Keillor made me laugh out loud yesterday with his NYT review of Bernard Henri Levy's American Vertigo. Usually he just makes me shudder.

My take on the Frey fray

2006-01-30T09:10:00.000-06:00

I have read a number of memoirs and each time I read one I think to myself, this can't possibly all be true. The details cannot be correct, exact conversations cannot be captured. Therefore, I've always thought that the concept of memoir was rather fluid. Last year I read Running with Scissors, a memoir so crazy you just know pieces of it were contrived. I also read Barak Obama's memoir, and while, obviously, it is not intended to shock the reader in the same way as Frey's Million Little Pieces and Burroughs's Running with Scissors, as a reader, I knew parts of it were not "true" per se. I think if you choose to read a memoir, you must understand that events are not always recounted the way they occurred. People remember feelings and impressions, not lines of dialogue. In my opinion, if you feel "duped" by James Frey, you weren't thinking.

More importantly, there are much larger issues of truth in our world right now. We have a president who has publically stated, "we do not torture," yet more and more information is coming out that we have and do, he says his wiretaps are not illegal, but the Fourth Amendment clearly states that "the right of the people to be secure . . . against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . ." I think we as a society must confront the issue of truth, and maybe James Frey's memoir is a starting point.

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone--J.K. Rowling

2006-01-26T07:58:00.000-06:00

I never said that every book I was going to read would be a literary masterpiece, people! I bought it to add to Ben's library, but he's a bit young for it, so I started reading and couldn't put it down. I've never loved the written-for-children adventure story, even as a kid. Too much sword fighting and male posturing. But this is different: much more A Wrinkle in Time than Lord of the Rings. Looking forward to picking up the next one.

St. Louis Libraries Ranked Number One in Literacy Study

2006-01-24T13:59:00.000-06:00

A study of America's Most Literate Cities has rated the St. Louis Public Library system number one. I've lived in St. Louis almost 8 years and have been impressed with the quality of the city library system. This has much to do with our superb neighborhood librarian, Charles, at the Charing Cross branch. Charles knows patrons by name and interest, can get you just about any book, CD, or video from another branch in record time, and has been known to put on hold items he thinks you might be interested in and surprise you with them at your next visit. Every neighborhood should be so lucky!

4. Oryx and Crake--Margaret Atwood

2006-01-23T09:12:00.000-06:00

Oryx and Crake presents a frightening dystopia in which climate change has dramatically altered the North American landscape, genetic engineering is commonplace in production of food, drugs, and "vanity" products, science has trumped art as a valid form of discourse, and giant corporations control the populace. As she did in A Handmaid's Tale, Atwood envisions a future not unforseeable, and thereby all the more chilling.

I remember taking a class with the wonderful Professor Reid in college on the history of ancient Greece. He told us about a trip to Greece as a young man where he spent the night in the ruins of the Oracle at Delphi. It was an inspiring story, but it always made me wonder, where are the seers of today? Exhibit one: Margaret Atwood. Not that I'm intending to deify Atwood, but she is brilliant at picking up on threads in current culture and seeing them through to their logical, albeit disturbing, conclusions. If current climate-change predictions are true, what will the world look like in 50 years? In the current global capitalist market, what will future innovation bring? How will it affect individuals? These questions keep me up at night, and apparently Atwood as well. I highly recommend this one.

Book-Buying Spree!

2006-01-16T10:00:00.003-06:00

Sarah was in from DC this weekend and we went to superb Subterranean Books in the Loop and incredible Left Bank Books in the Central West End. Picked up four titles, Neal Pollack's Never Mind the Pollacks, Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries, Mary McCarthy's The Company She Keeps, and Sinclair Lewis's Elmer Gantry. Look for reviews in the near future.

3. Julie and Julia--Julie Powell

2006-01-16T09:28:00.000-06:00

Julie Powell set out to cook every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. She blogged about her day-to-day attempts and this book is an ersatz compilation of her blog. I thought the book was going to be more about cooking and food, and some of it was, but more of it was about her marriage, job, and friends. And, unfortunately, she's kind of annoying. I hate to say that, because there were parts of the book to which I could totally relate, and there were absolutely hilarious laugh-out-loud moments. Truth be told, there was a certain amount of projection going on with me in that I felt like if I were to write a book and tell my honest reaction to certain culinary-related disasters, it wouldn't reflect well on me and most people would consider me annoying. So, cheers to Julie for being honest and for her ambitious project. I couldn't have done it.

2. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman--Ernest J. Gaines

2006-01-14T18:49:00.000-06:00

*Book Club Pick* A novel that presents itself as an autobiography of a former slave and tells of her experiences in Louisiana from the end of the Civil War through the Civil Rights movement. In many ways, it was unfortunate that I read this right after reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, because UTC was so, so incredible, and really, AoMJP just could not measure up. But, it's not really fair to compare AoMJP to UTC because, first, this isn't a competition, and second, they are products of very different times. Of course, there are obvious similarities in that both novels attempt to highlight the plight of the slave and former slave in the American South.

1. Uncle Tom's Cabin--Harriet Beecher Stowe

2006-01-14T13:51:00.000-06:00

I'm embarrassed to say I've never read this one. Guess slavery would have been a bit too controversial for a Springfield, Missouri high school. Come to think of it, had I been assigned this one in high school I wouldn't have read it anyway. I would have bought the Cliff's Notes.

But, now I am an adult, and I have read it, and it was superb. Superb. The faces of slavery portrayed exemplify nuances of which I was completely unaware. The good master and the bad master. The good mistress and the bad mistress. The accepting hearts of children and their capacity for unlimited good and bad. The hierarchy of slaves. The story is heartwrenching and enlightening. I highly recommend it, if you have the time.

Fifty Books in 2006

2006-01-14T13:48:00.000-06:00

Hello all! I'm hoping to read fifty books this year and because it's sometimes hard for me to force myself to read when there's so much crappy TV to watch, I thought a blog might keep me accountable and focused on my goal. We shall see! Feel free to comment--limericks encouraged!