Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

the mysterious edge of the heroic world

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There is something about E.L. Konigsburg’s writing that simultaneously entertains, enlightens, and even mildly annoys me. I enjoy her books, sometimes immensely– as in this case– but am usually left with a sense of not-quite-getting it, of not entirely being in on the joke.

I felt that way after finishing this book, but I’m not sure it mattered.

The basic story is about Amadeo — a precocious boy who is looking for friends and the chance to discover something that has been lost. He falls in with William, whose mother (Dora Ellen Wilcox) supervises estate sales, and ends up helping with the categorization when his next-door-neighbor, Mrs. Zender — former opera singer and diva supreme– decides that she needs to put the contents of her house up for sale. There ensues a mystery, a discovery, and a bonding.

Sounds pretentious, and in some ways it is. Yet, I liked the story a lot. Possibly because Konigsburg’s writing is so wonderful. A passage early on in the book:

Mrs. Zender swept her arm in the direction of the back of the house. The hallway was wide enough to allow them to walk side by side, but Mrs. Zender walked ahead. She was tall, and she was zaftig. Definitely zaftig. She was also majestic. She moved forward like a queen vessel plowing still waters. Her kimono corrugated as she moved. There as a thin stripe of purple that winked as it appeared and then disappeared in a fold of fabric at her waist.

And later — though taken out of context, it sounds like it could be from a self-help book:

Friendship is a combination of art and craft. The craft part is knowing how to give and how to take. The art part is knowing when, and the whole process only works when no one is keeping track.

The other reason I enjoyed this book so much, in spite of is precociousness, is because I really loved the precocious and mildly irritating characters. Especially Mrs. Zender. She was a hoot. A dignified, respectable hoot, but one nonetheless. From near the end:

“I haven’t read a book in years. Every now and then I read a review in a magazine at the beauty parlor, and sometimes I think I would enjoy reading an entire book, but I allow the thought to pass.”

How wonderful is that?

At the mysterious edge of the heroic world… pretty wonderful.

And I’m off!

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Nothing unforseen has happened (except maybe National Donut Day, which means I have to make a run to Krispy Kreme today to get donuts — FREE! — for the girls, but that shouldn’t take long… and the local Shakespeare company’s outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing, but I’m not missing that for the world), and so I get to spend as much as I possibly can of the next 48 hours reading.

Yay!

On my TBR pile:


I have no idea whether or not this is going to be too much or not enough — I guess we’ll just see how it goes.

Ever

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I think it was over at Bookfoolery and Babble (but it may have been somewhere else…) where I saw someone comment that the first Levine book you read is the one you like best. I thought about that a lot while I read this story.

It has all the hallmarks of a good fairy tale — mortal girl, Kezi, who is inadvertently sentenced to death to avoid the wrath of the god she worships (her father made an oath, and she ended up fulfilling the oath to save her aunt’s life…). And then there’s the uber-handsome (well, if you believe the cover) Akkan god of the wind Olus, who is not only intrigued by mortals, but longs to be friends with them. It’s inevitable that they will fall in love. But it’s not exactly a comfortable love: one of them will live forever, the other is doomed to be sacrificed in less than 30 days. So, they do what all star-crossed lovers do: look for the loophole.

There’s a good story there. And I enjoyed much of it. I think, though, what I enjoyed most was the questions of love, faith and doubt that the book raised. In that respect, it was very challenging, especially to someone who has a belief in religion. I thought Kezi’s doubt was very real, especially when confronted with someone like Olus, a god who is a real, physical being, unlike the god Kezi’s always believed in. I wasn’t sure what Levine was trying to “say” about religion, if anything, but the journey fascinated me.

That said, while it was enjoyable, it wasn’t, well, as good as the first Levine I read (or even the second or third). I thought it lacked the character development and romance found in Ella Enchanted, the humor found in the short Princess Tales, the “good message” of Fairest, the compelling heroines in Two Princesses of Bamarre.

Any Levine book is going to be a good book. She’s a good writer, and tells good fairy tales. It just so happens that this one is, perhaps, the fourth best one I’ve read. Maybe it’s because I read all the others first.

I’m Told it’s a Good Problem to Have

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I have parents telling me that ALL the time. Where they can’t get their kids to read…. I can’t keep M in books. I check out 10-15 a week, and that doesn’t even last. I try to keep up with all the recommended books that bloggers read, but I am losing the ability to keep track of which ones I want to read and which ones M would want to read (though honestly, they’re often the same thing), putting holds on things as I see them. When that doesn’t work, we scrounge the shelves looking for things that sound interesting, and while we generally find good ones, sometimes we come up short.

Like today.

So I decided to turn to you, dear readers, who read so much more than I do: what should M read??

Let me tell you a bit about her. She’s a precocious reader, reading at a 10th grade level. However, she’s not quite 12, so obviously there’s some things I’d rather her not experience (though I admit that’s just me…) — though I admit that it’s hard to judge what’s “acceptable” or not…. Anyway. She tends toward fantasy (she loves Eragon, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Bartimaeus, the Magik series, and so on), but she also likes well-written historical fiction and contemporary fiction. In short, she’ll read just about anything. She’s not read much non-fiction, but I’m not sure if that’s because I don’t really know what’s out there or because she doesn’t want to read it. She’s also a bit sketchy on the classics… I think that’s because she’s not that interested. But I suppose if there was a really good novel she’d like it no matter when it was written, right?

Also, if you had this problem (which is a lot harder than many well-meaning people think it is), where else (besides blogs) would you go to find lists of books recommended for 7th-10th graders??

Please help me!!! (Thanks a million!)

Swordspoint

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I have mixed feelings about this one. I’ve been a fan of Ellen Kushner’s Sound and Spirit for years now, and I had high hopes that I’d enjoy her written work as much as I enjoy her PRI program. And I did enjoy this book for the most part, but it fell short in the end.

I won’t — because it’s just not possible — go into the plot here. I tried to come up with a neat and tidy summary, and I just can’t. There’s so many characters — one of the flaws for me; I just couldn’t keep everyone straight — and there’s so much going on. That’s actually one of the things that appealed to me. I liked that this book was a long and involved chess game, people maneuvering other people around to their advantage; characters falling into (and sometimes out of) traps delicately laid for them. I liked the intrigue — there’s one character that you’re left in suspense of for a good portion of the book: who was he, how did he end up where he did, why does he have a death wish? — and the action was well-written. Actually, that’s one thing I can say I really enjoyed: Kusher’s as good a writer as I hoped: descriptive, but not too flowery (well, mostly), and she sketches out characters and situations that were interesting and fun to read.

But….

She fell short with the end. I’m not sure it could have ended any other way, but I felt as if I were watching a game of chess, and then at the end, everyone got up and said “Oh wait! It’s Parcheesi, not chess, that we’re playing.” I was left with a big Huh. Too many threads that she wove were left hanging, and the ending was much too pat for what had been set up during the course of the novel. If only… I don’t know what. I do know that there were several short stories set in the world (which reminds me: this is only fantasy because it’s not historical or contemporary fiction; it has very few of the hallmarks of what I usually consider Fantasy…) and I tried to read them. And either Kushner isn’t a great short-story writer (which she readily admits), or I just wasn’t all that interested in the end.

I’m still trying to make up my mind whether or not to venture into the other two books. Maybe I’ll like them better… or maybe they’ll end up with the same flaws that doomed this one. But then, I won’t know until I read them, will I?

The Sisters Grimm: Magic and Other Misdemeanors

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First thing: that’s a terrible reproduction of a pretty good cover. Sorry.

I’ve been slowly reading this series to C, and while I thought the idea was original and interesting in the beginning, my interest has waned over the last three books. The fourth one kind of perked it up, but I admit I wasn’t more interested in the story than I actually needed to be in order to read to C.

All that changed with this one, though.

This time, I found myself interested enough in the story to want to read ahead (and did, much to C’s chagrin). It’ s not because Buckley’s writing has changed — he’s still an overly long-winded writer, including scenes that really don’t have a whole heck of a lot to do with the plot (but for some reason M and C really enjoy) — but rather because this time there was an interesting enough story.

Prince Charming’s lost the mayoral election and the new mayor, Mayor Heart (as in Queen of Hearts) has decided to tax the humans out of town. On top of that, magical items around the town — specifically the Wand of Merlin, the Wonder Clock and water from the Fountain of Youth — are disappearing. And to make things more challenging, rips in the fabric of time are occurring randomly, spending people, animals, and even the Grimm sisters forward and backward through time. And then, of course, there’s still the pesky little Scarlet Hand problem, in addition to trying to figure out how to wake up their parents.

The things I liked: Charming was a winner in this book. He’s been annoying throughout the series, but I really liked him here. Not only does he prove to be a decent fellow, but a good action hero on top of that. I liked the future sequences, too… Daphne and Sabrina meet their older selves, which makes for some interesting situations.

Things I didn’t like: The end. Doesn’t Buckley know how to wrap up a book?! The one thing I hate the most is a book that ends with “to be continued…” Don’t slip in a cliff-hanger (and this one’s a doozy) two pages before the end of the book. Sure, it’ll get people to buy the next one, but it’s bad form.

I’ve just discovered that our library has the sixth one, so I get to read that one to C. Though I really liked this one, I still find myself asking: When will this ever end? That’s probably not a good sign. Even so, C adores them, talks about them, and wants to keep going, so we will…

Persepolis

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I picked this up yesterday with the desire to read something quick, easy and light. I got the first two with these graphic novels by Marjane Satrapi, but light… well, let’s just say I was in a dark mood, and this didn’t do much to lighten it up. It’s a starkly drawn graphic novel, different from anything I’ve read before, literally in black and white without much variation. And it’s not like the subject matter — Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, exile (of sorts) in Europe, and return to Iran — was exactly a cheerful one.

Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, during the revolution. I’ve heard her story before — not as told by her, but as told by others; it seems that this story (of an upper-middle-class, fairly liberal woman) is one that gets told a lot. Probably because these are the sorts of people that got out of Iran, and are able to tell the stories. Not that it wasn’t interesting; it was. I thought Satrapi portrayed her childhood as, while not idyllic, charmed. At the very least, she was charming. (I loved that she wanted to be a prophet when she grew up. Very cute.) When Hubby was talking to me about the book, and asked why she left, for me it boiled down to personality: it’s not that she couldn’t have made a go — her parents did, after all — but her personality was too forceful for the regime and she was unwilling (and her parents were unwilling to make her) change. So, she went to Vienna for school.

Which brings us to Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return. Of the two, I was more affected by this one, because this is a story that I haven’t read before. I was moved by her esperiences in Vienna — as a teenager alone in an unknown city, as an immigrant in a European town, as a person who’s trying to not only find her identity but come to terms with her nationality. In a lot of ways, she was at a disadvantage: her parents weren’t there to guide her, she had problems making friends, her aforementioned personality was a hindrance as much as it was an asset. I thought Satrapi portrayed isolation and loneliness and need incredibly well. After four years in Vienna, Satrapi decides to return back to Iran, and we have another set of adjustments. After four years of living in Europe, to come home to the Islamic regime of Iran was not only a shock and adjustment, it did nothing to alleviate her loneliness and identity crisis. Again, we have another period of adjustment, where mistakes are made — including a doomed marriage — and it’s not until the very end where Satrapi leaves again, that she finds her sense of balance between who she is and what everyone — parents, friends, the state, the world — expects of her.

My favorite little bit — it’s just two frames — was the same one that Sarah quoted:

“The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking herself: ‘Are my trousers long enough? Is my veil in place? Can my make-up be seen? Are they going to whip me?’ no longer asks herself: ‘Where is my freedom of thought? Were is my freedom of speech? My life, is it livable? What’s going on in the political prisons?’

It’s only natural! When we’re afraid, we lose all sense of analysis and reflection. Our fear paralyzes us. Besides, fear has always been the driving force behind all dictators’ repression.”

Satrapi hit the nail on the head there. And I think that’s what I liked most about it. At one point, Satrapi is praised by a member of the committee for her honesty (which is how she got into art school), and I think fundamentally that’s what is most appealing about these books: Satrapi holds nothing back. She’s honest about everything — good and bad, ups and downs — which makes these, while difficult to read at times, very intense and intriguing.

May Jacket-Flap-a-Thon

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This was the month of mediocre jacket flaps. There wasn’t much that was really super inspiring, fun, clever, interesting or eye-catching. Ah, well. I guess there’s bound to be months like that.

5. Merlin Trilogy (Morrow): “The prophetic voice of Merlin, the mysterious enchanter of Arthurian legend, has completed his story. Written over a period of ten years, Mary Stewart’s three best-selling novels now stand together in one volume — the finest work of her distinguished career. Hers is the most extended portrait in all literature of this compelling figure of Dark Age myth and history. Merlin, the protector and tutor of Arthur, has usually been portrayed as an old man. But The Crystal Cave begins the trilogy with the story of his perilous childhood as the bastard son of a Welsh king’s daughter and the secret discovery of the magic arts that will set him apart from other men. With the birth of Arthur, Merlin’s guardianship began and the ancient legend continues in The Hollow Hills with the dramatic immediacy that is Mary Stewart’s special gift. Arthur grew to young manhood, ignorant of his royal parentage, in the deep and dangerous forests of fifth-century England and Wales, where no law was stable and fierce battle rages amongst the brooding mountains. When, in due course, Merlin guided him to the sword that tested his claim to power and the crown, Arthur became king by right, and soon Merlin, his adviser, was to emerge, however obscurely, as the architect of the first United Britain. King Arthur plunged instantly into violent warfare against the Saxons. But in The Last Enchantment there are also more dangerous and subtle enemies ranged against him: Mortgause, half-sister and seductress of Arthur; their child, Mordred; the friends and kin who will betray him. Merlin’s darkest prophecies were realized one by one, yet his bright vision of the future kingdom did prevail, and he foresaw the mystic power that would be at the King’s service as long as Arthur lived. The imaginative brilliance of the Merlin Trilogy completes the life and character of Merlin which are left untold in the early legends. At the end of each of the novels, Mary Stewart has set down the substance of the original legends and with it the sources of her own variations. Her portrait of Merlin is a new legend in itself.”

It’s long, yes, but it’s also a jacket flap for a three-in-one edition. And for that, I think this is a good summary — just enough about each book to give you a hint, but it doesn’t go on overly long.

4. The Orchid Thief (Random House): “The orchid thief in Susan Orlean’s mesmerizing true story of beauty and obsession is John Laroche, a renegade plant dealer and sharply handsome guy, in spit of the fact that he’s missing his front teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. In 1994, Laroche and three Seminole Indians were arrested with rare orchids they had stolen from a wild swamp in south Florida that is filled with some of hate world’s most extraordinary plants and trees. Laroche had planned to clone the orchids and then sell them for a small fortune to impassioned collectors. After he was caught in the act, Laroche set off one of the oddest legal controversies in recent memory, which brought together environmentalists, Native American activists, and devoted orchid collectors. The result is a tale that is strange, compelling and hilarious. New Yorker writer Susan Orlean followed Laroche through swamps and into the eccentric world of Florida’s orchid collectors, a subculture of aristocrats, fanatics and smuggles whose obession with plants is all-consuming. Along the way, Orlean learned the history of orchid collecting, discovered an odd pattern of plant crimes in Florida, and spent time with Laroche’s partners, a tribe of Seminole Indians who are still at war with teh United States. There is something fascinating or funny or truly bizarre on every page of The Orchid Thief: the story of how the head of a famous Seminole chief came to be displayed in the front window of a local pharmacy; or how seven hundred iguanas were smuggled into Florida; or the case of the only known extraterrestrial plant crime. Ultimately, however Susan Orlean’s book is about passion itself, and the amazing lengths to which people will go to gratify it. That passion is captured with singular vision in The Orchid Thief, a once-in-a-lifetime story by one of our most original journalists.”

Someone answer me this: why are all jacket flap descriptions in adult hardback books really long? Just because there’s the space to fill, doesn’t mean you have to fill it. That aside, this does a decent job making a weird book about orchids, Florida and passion sound interesting.

3. The Battle of the Labyrinth (Hyperion): “Percy Jackson isn’t expecting his freshman orientation to be any fun. But when a mysterious mortal acquaintance reappears, followed by demon cheerleaders, things quickly move from bad to worse. In this fourth installment of the blockbuster series, time is running out as war between the Olympians and the evil Titan lord Kronos draws near. Even the safe haven of Camp Half-Blood grows more vulnerable by the minute as Kronos’s army prepares to invade its once impenetrable borders. To stop them, Percy and his demigod friends will set out on a quest through the Labyrinth — a sprawling underground world with stunning surprises at every turn. Full of humor and heart-pounding action, this fourth book promises to be their most thrilling adventure yet.”

I thought this did a good job with the book; enough bones for someone who knows the books and is curious about this one, but not too much to give away the plot. Which is essential, especially for Percy Jackson.

2.. Out of the Wild (Sleuth Razorbill): “Beware the Wild: it bites. Ever since Julie Marchen helped defeat the fairytale world of the Wild, life’s been pretty much back to normal. That is, as normal as life can be for a girl whose mom is Rapunzel. Yes, that Rapunzel. Then the Wild mysteriously releases Zel’s prince (Julie’s dad) — a rescue-minded hero who crashes full-speed ahead into the 21st century (YOU try teaching a 500-year-old prince to use a seatbelt.) Julie’s over the moon, but when a wicked Fairy Godmother kidnaps Sleeping Beauty and reawakens the Wild, Julie and her dad set off on an action-packed adventure to save the distressed damsel, and the world. If they can’t, they’ll spend eternity in a fairytale.”

Clever, funny, witty. Very well written.

1. Airman (Hyperion): ” Conor Broekhart was born to fly. In fact, legend has it that he was born flying in a hot air balloon at the world’s fair. In the 1890’s Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king’s daughter, Princess Isabella. But the boy’s idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a conspiracy to overthrow the king. When Conor tries to expose the plot, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions. There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So he passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines into the prison walls. The months turn into years, but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the skies.”

It made me want to read the book (well, that and blog reviews…). And it does a good job of describing the whole plot (see the one worst), and not just one element of it.

And the one worst:
Exodus (Walker Books): “Less than a hundred years from now, the world as we know it no longer exists. Cities have disappeared beneath the sea, technology no longer functions, and human civilization has reverted to a much more primitive state. For the residents of Wing, an isolated northern island, time is running out. As the sea swallows precious acres and threatens to claim their very lives, they must look beyond their tiny island home for refuge. Only fifteen-year-old Mara has the vision and the will to lead them all in search of a new beginning in this harsh, unfamiliar world. She learns of sky cities that are safe from the storms and rising water, and she is finally able to convince the islanders that finding their way to New Mungo, the closest of the New World cities, is their only chance for survival. But upon reaching the mysterious high-tech civilization, they are shut out of the city, blocked from their only chance at sanctuary. Mara must find a way past the walls to save her people, even if it means risking everything. “

The thing that bothered me most about this — and you wouldn’t know it until you read the book — is that the jacket flap only covers the first 1/3 of the book. The rest of Mara’s adventures, and how she eventually escapes them all, are left unknown. Reading this, you would think that the adventure is getting to New Mungo, not getting away from it. (Oops, a spoiler. Sorry.)

Emma

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If you had to choose one leading man from any Jane Austen book as your absolute all-time favorite, which one would you choose? Me, I would choose Mr. Knightly. Sure, I love Mr. Darcy, or Captain Wentworth, and Henry Tilney even managed to make me smile. But Mr. Knightly… he’s just about perfect, in my humble view.

See, he puts up with Emma, who is — by all accounts — a very silly, vain, misguided girl. And not only does he put up with her, but he gently (mostly) corrects her, helps her become the woman she really should be. And he loves her for and in spite of it all. (Throughout the whole book, too. I think that’s one thing that really hit me on this re-read: the evidence for Mr. Knightly’s love was there from very early on, even if neither one of them knew it.) Perhaps that’s why I love this love story best. Because, while I love Lizzy’s wit and perception and assertiveness and Anne’s goodness and long-sufferingness, I think I find Emma — for all her class snobbery (that’s the other thing that stood out on this re-read; it’s a very class-centric book) — the most imperfect, the most accessible, the most real of all of Austen’s heroines.

Which is also probably why I find this one highly entertaining. I know many people find Emma (both the character and the book) grating, but I am constantly amused by her antics, her desire to try and make people’s lives in her own image. (There’s a lot that I could say about silly, sweet Harriet; or even the grating Mrs. Elton; or Mr. Elton who aspires to be a rich snob and only comes off with the snob part; or Jane Fairfax, who comes off much better in the book than she does in the movie; or Frank Churchill, who should be a scoundrel, but in reality is just an immature guy… but I won’t.) And I think that’s why Mr. Knightly, as the counter-balance to Emma’s flightiness, has found a special place in my heart.

That, and this one line: “Men of sense, whatever you may choose to say, do not want silly wives.”

Sigh.

The Last Enchantment

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It occurred to me fairly early on in this book that it would make a pretty good stand-alone. There’s a lot of exposition up front, which I found tedious, but which would make The Last Enchantment a book that would hold up pretty well by itself. The only downside is that you’d be reading the least enjoyable of the three books.

That’s not to say that it’s a bad book. It’s not. It’s a good book, but it pales in comparison to the other two in the series. (I’m not even going to bother with the fourth one, having read it years ago and disliked it greatly. I’ll live without the conclusion of Arthur’s story.) I was trying to figure out why I didn’t enjoy this one as much; the writing isn’t lacking, and it deals with the part of Arthur’s story that’s usually ripe for the telling. It comes down to that, compared to the Merlin of the first two books, this Merlin — the aging, dwindling Merlin — isn’t as interesting. He’s likeable, but really boring. It wasn’t until the end when he picks up with Nimue that I really became interested (the part where Arthur breaks it to Merlin that Nimue is really a girl is quite amusing) again. But then, after a few short chapters, Merlin “dies” and is buried in his living death.

And then the book keeps going. This is what really bugged me. Merlin dies, and yet we still have to have a happily-ever after… ta, da! He’s not dead. He was just faking it (a “malady” like unto death). And so he comes back alive, only to fade away (again). It wasn’t bad, just a bit hokey. I think I would have been happier if he’d just left it with the cave part. (But then, I realize as I’m writing this, how on earth could this story come out? If it’s written in Merlin’s hand, it’s his story, and he just dies in the cave, how on earth could it ever be published? Of course he couldn’t be dead; he had to live to tell his story. Then he could die.)

As an aside: I still didn’t like the women, except for Nimue, and she only had a limited role. It did make me want to go back and read Mists again (don’t know if I will, though), if only because I really feel that Marion Zimmer Bradley’s tale is the flip side of Stewart’s. It seems to me, in recollection, that the two books balance each other out. Perhaps that’s as it should be.

At any rate, it’s a fitting conclusion to Merlin’s story. (one can’t expect him to have power the whole time; I did like, on some level, that Stewart made the book fit Merlin’s situation. It didn’t have to be that way, but it was, and it worked.) For Merlin’s story it is. Yes, Arthur plays a role, just as Merlin plays a role in Arthur’s story, but it isn’t the Arthurian legend, at least not as we really know it. Even so, I think it’s an important part of the Arthurian canon, and a good place for someone to start a foray into the Arthurian legend.