The April issue of Estella is up! And if you’re interested, this is what I thought of the Super Mom books by Melanie Hauser. I also have an interview with the author, too. (Though I think my opening paragraph is lame. Need to work on that.) There’s good stuff in the issue. Go. Enjoy.
Author: booknutgirls
An Instance of the Fingerpost
The local library’s Read Outside the Box program is coming to an end, and for my final book, I decided I wanted to read a mystery. Browsing around Book Girl’s Nightstand a while back, I was reminded (she mentioned her Murder on Monday group) that she was a big mystery reader. (I know that more of you out there are mystery readers; I just happened to be at her blog at the time.) And I found this gem of a book, by Iain Pears.
I can’t go into the plot; it would spoil the book. Basically, it’s the same murder mystery from four different perspectives. It’s difficult, writing from the perspective of four different characters (some you like more than others), but Pears does so very effectivly. And as a result, he gives us a wonderful look into Truth and Perspective and how subjective “facts” are. That alone makes this book worth your time.
The book is long and it sometimes drags, and I had to keep going back and forth between the sections to remember who was who. All the historical figures (whom I could never quite keep straight) had a tendency to muddle the story at times. But none of that detracted from the book for me. It’s a great murder mystery, and I thought the political intrigue and the historical elements give it a great feel. In the end, I put it down knowing I just read a fabulous story.
If I could find more mysteries of this quality, I’d probably read more of them.
Once Upon a Time
Ah, another challenge. There are so many going around out there, that I feel like I need to pick and choose, or I’ll never get to read just for “fun” and I’ll always feel like I’m doing assignments. I finished college too long ago to feel like that.
At any rate, there are a number of fantasy books on my TBR list that I’ve been wanting to get around to, so I figured this was as good of an excuse as any to read some of them.
So, the quest I’m taking is:
Quest Three: Read at least one book from each of the four genres of story (Mythology, Folklore, Fairytale, and Fantasy), and finish up the challenge with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
1. Mythology: The Sea of Monsters, by Rick Riordian. I’ve been meaning to read this one for ages (since The Lightening Thief, actually), and since it’s based on the Odessy, which I read for the Classics Challenge, I figure I might enjoy it that much more.
2.Folklore: Warrior Girl, by Pauline Chandler. Okay, so Joan of Arc technically isn’t folklore (more historical fiction), but it does have some folklorish elements to it. Either that, or The Legend of Lady Ilena, by Patricia Malone. I am a sucker for King Arthur books.
3. Fantasy: The Riddle-Master of Hed, by Patricia McKillip. I’ve been meaning to read this for ages, ever since I heard about it on Sound and Spirit. It’s the first in a trilogy. I’d love to say I’ll read all three, but since I’ve had a hold on the copy the library has of the whole trilogy since September, I probably should just say I’ll read the first and go from there. (Maybe I can Book Mooch the second?)
4.FairyTale: This one was hard for me. Not because I couldn’t choose, but because I had to find one I hadn’t read! I finally came up with Wildwood Dancing, by Juliet Marillier. It’s a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses (I can’t remember the name of the fairy tale): the one where they are forced to dance every month at midnight until the youngest breaks the spell (or something like that; I know I’ve read it at one point). I know Bookshelves of Doom hated it, but since I can’t come up with any other fairy tales, I thought I’d give it a try.
And I’ll finish it off with Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I’ve never read.
The Search for Delicious
It’s been spring break here, and while we’ve been enjoying less-than-lovely weather (no snow, thankfully, but lots of rain), we’ve managed to get a few things done around the house. Like digging up a place for an herb garden, and painting one of the many rooms that need to be painted. And go on a brief weekend trip to Oklahoma City. Which is where The Search for Delicious comes in. We — my husband and I (the girls weren’t interested, preferring to plug into various electronic devices) — listened to the book on the drive down. And thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
It’s a quaint little book, by Natalie Babbitt. DeCree, the prime minister of an unnamed country, is writing a dictionary. And all is going well until he hits upon the word delicious. He writes: “Delicious as fried fish.” But no, the king won’t have it. In fact, no one can agree on what delicious is. And so, Gaylen, DeCree’s adpoted son, goes out to poll the people about what they think. As a result, town turns against town, people against people, all being riled up by Hemlock, who wants to be king. It’s up to Gaylen to save them all.
We were worried about this turning into an adventure story, but I think it redeems itself quite nicely in the end. There is Adventure and unusual beings (woldwellers, mermaids and dwarfs to be exact), but it all works quite nicely together.
And we got a superb audio rendition of the story. It was narrated by Natalie Babbitt herself, with a cast of actors playing/reading supporting roles. It kept us completely engaged in the story, and even drew the girls in, in the end.
A most wonderful way to pass a long drive.
Ten Books I Can’t Live Without
Kailana over at The Written World is collecting bloggers lists of books that they can’t live without . (I found it through Bookgirl’s Nightstand; she’s got a great list). It sounded like fun, so I’m throwing out my ten.
In no particular order:
1. My Jane Austen fix: Pride and Prejudice (or Persuasion). Can’t live without it. In fact, I need to read it again soon. It’s been too long.
2. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith: This one has shown up on a couple people’s lists. So totally charming, so totally engaging. So totally wonderful.
3. The Orange Girl, Jostein Gaardner: It’s a wonderful little book. A letter from a (dead) father to his son (who’s 11 when he reads it), it’s the story of how he and his wife met. Just about perfect.
4. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok: Out of all the Potok books I’ve read (which is most of them, at one point or another), this one touched me the most. I liked the sequel, too, but not as much.
5. Beauty, Robin McKinley: Ah, to only put one Robin McKinley book down. That is a shame. But, this one is here not because it’s my favorite, but because it was the first one I ever read by her. And I really like it.
6. A Little Princess (or Secret Garden), Frances Hodgson Burnett: I love her stories, I love her story telling.
7. Maps in the Mirror, Orson Scott Card: I’d put one of his novels down, but I find too much at fault with them. With Maps in the Mirror, you get the best of Scott Card without all the excess: it’s a collection of short stories.
8. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: Babel fish, Marvin the robot, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and don’t forget your towel.
9. The Giver, Lois Lowry: Again, I love much of what I’ve read by her. This one is not only representative of everything, but is really the best. Well, maybe Number the Stars comes close, too.
10. The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness, Joel ben Izzy: Ah, a nonfiction book. I think I meant to keep this all fiction, but in thinking about my list, I couldn’t not leave some non-fiction off. This one is slight, but powerful. It’s his journey in learning how to be happy where he is in life, and to stop wishing for something other than what he had. Powerful.
Super Hero Books and Thinking Blogs
I am reading, really. I’ve finished one book and am nearly done with it’s sequel, but I can’t review them here. Argh. Who knew that reviewing for Estella’s Revenge would mess things up here? I’ll link to the book review once the April issue comes out. Y’all will just have to wait until then to hear about Super Mom.
Speaking of Estella, Andi tagged me with the Thinking Blogger Award.
I was a bit surprised, because I don’t consider myself a “thinking blogger”. When someone says “thinking blogger” I think more of my husband (who was also tagged with this). Which, I guess, means I think thinking blogging is long, drawn out, highly intellectual posting. *grin* Obviously, I don’t fit that description (at least most of the time), so I suppose I’ll just have to change my expectations. So, the challenge is now mine: who do I think are “thinking bloggers”? Hmmm…
The problem is that if I change my definition of thinking bloggers, then I’m left with too many to choose from. And how do I choose? There’s a reason why my blog roll is what it is. I enjoy reading every one of those blogs for various reasons. And they all make me think, in various ways.
So, I’m throwing out the rules (who’s going to enforce them anyway? The blog police?).
Tag to Amira, Corrine, Inkling, Renee and Julie for being good blog friends (and writing interesting posts and reading good books). Tag to Booklogged, Nessie, Heather and Iliana for reading and writing about interesting books and helping to expand my never-ending to be read list. Tag to Fuse #8, Mother Reader, Brooklyn Arden and Bookshelves of Doom for making me laugh and feel like I’m a part of the hip kidlit blog world (because if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s hip). Tag to turtlebella who doesn’t really fit anywhere else, and I think she likes it that way. Oh, and tag to Food Chronicles and Farmgirl Fare who don’t write about books at all, but rather have some very interesting and thoughtful things to say about food.
There, that’s pretty much my whole blog roll. You’re it.
Outlander
*Blush*
I can’t believe I just read this book.
Granted, it was for the Read Outside the Box thing for the library, and the premise — women from 20th century England travels back in time to 18th century Scotland and finds True Love there — sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try.
But, still. *Blush* I can’t believe I just read this book. (There’s been a lot of that lately. I went from reading a high school vampire romance to a time traveling Scottish romance. I gotta stop.)
This book, by Diana Gabaldon, walked that fine line between literature and Harlequin Romance. It wasn’t quite the heaving bosoms and Fabio type, but it wasn’t far from it either. I would venture to guess that her audience while writing was women who were looking for something of an, um, escape from life.
Points off for excessive and weird uses of adverbs. Her feet sank moistly into the soil; he looked jaundicedly at her (love that one), and they blush crimsonly. Points off for excessive use of (though rather tasteful, and married) sex. Points off for bringing up an interesting ethical dilemma — what do you do if you’re married, and then travel back in time, and are forced to marry someone else — and then dropping it half way through only to have someone in the end just absolve the whole issue by saying it’s a will of God. (Granted, no one was reading this for the ethical dilemma. Except maybe me.) Points off for pointless, long and boring, conversations.
Points for making Claire an interesting heroine. How would you react if you got thrown through time? She managed quite well, and even made the best of a bad situation. Points for chemistry between Claire and Jamie. The heat came oozing out of the book. Points for not making 18th century Scotland into a romantic place. Murder, rape (of both men and women), torture, witch-burning, adultery. No, I dinna want to live there. (She wrote in dialect: I’ve been calling my girls “bonnie wee lassies” all week.) But, it fit the book, and it made the conflict that much more.
I can’t decide whether to give points or take them for making the bad guy — Randall — not just a Bad Guy, but a genuine Evil Man. The things he attempts to do, and does, are downright despicable. It gives the book some weight to it, but on the other hand, it was almost excessive, and often seemed out of place. Often, especially at the end, I felt like it was just too much. Enough, already.
Is it a piece of literature? No. Is it a melodrama, soap opera, guilty pleasure? Yes. Is it good? That depends, I guess, on what you’re looking for.
The Higher Power of Lucky
First. I hate it when people overreact to a single word and then the whole thing becomes a meta-event, and people who have never read the book are passing judgment on it. READ THE DANG BOOK PEOPLE BEFORE DECIDING IT’S BAD! (Okay. Enough soapbox. Granted, I’m a hypocrite, here, passing judgment on many books without reading them. Still. I don’t cause meta-events usually. So maybe it’s the meta-event thing that I’m reacting to. Enough.)
So, what did I think of this book by Susan Patron? Well, not much at first. It’s a quiet little book. (Really little — it’s only 134 pages.) But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It’s not a book that makes you shout: “Wahoo! This is the best book EVER!” It’s more a book that as you mull it over, you find yourself smiling about. Like Miles, the five year old who’s always mooching cookies, except he doesn’t really mooch, because Lucky told him he was a mooch so now he tries to trade things (like allowing Dot to wash his hair) for cookies. But people end up just giving him the cookies anyway. Or Lincoln Clinton Carter Kennedy, who’s mom wants him to grow up to be president, but who just wants to tie knots and get to the International Knot Tiers convention in England.
And then there’s Lucky. I think Patron really got an aspect of being ten here. Lucky’s not quite a child, but then she’s not quite grown up. She wants to find her Higher Power, because she wants to have some sort of control in her life. And she feels powerless right now. I think there’s a lot of 10 year olds who feel that way.
Nothing really major happens in the book. It didn’t make me laugh out loud. It didn’t make me cry. But, you know, it’s a good book.
Cross posted at The Newberry Project.
Booklist Meme
I’ve seen this one floating around, and every time I do, I think: Hmmm… I wonder how I would fare. So, here goes:
Books I’ve read
Books I want to or believe I should readBooks I wouldn’t touch (again, in some instances) with a ten foot pole
Books on my bookshelves
Books on my TBR list
Books I’ve never heard of
Books I’ve only seen in movie or TV form
**Books I count among my favorites**
Books I’ve heard of, but haven’t or won’t read
1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
**2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)**
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) [but it’s been forever; time for a reread]
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
**8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)**
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon) [it’s for the Read Outside the Box thing for our library]
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)18. The Stand (Stephen King) [I don’t do horror]
**19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)**
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) [I think I started it once, but I’m not sure I finished it. At any rate, I don’t remember it.]
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
;”>23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
**25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)**
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) 27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) [train wreck]
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) [I don’t read Steinbeck, sorry. I had enough of him in high school.]30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) [Read the other one. Hated it.]
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) 33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible [most of it, anyway]
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) [see previous Steinbeck comment]
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) [though it’s been too long; time for another reread]
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) [though I don’t particularly like Dickens]
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) [used to own it, loaned it to a friend. It never came back]60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
**80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)**
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) [read it in high school, not especially willingly]
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
**85. Emma (Jane Austen)**
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) [have tried, and failed, to read this one]
**93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)**94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) [read the Mermaid Chair; have no desire to read this one]
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)100. Ulysses (James Joyce) [I read part of this in college; that was enough for me.]
The Art of the Common place: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
Ah, Wendell Berry. The last time I attempted to read him, I, um, didn’t succeed. But then, I wasn’t getting much sleep either. And one thing I’ve learned about Berry is that you really have to focus on what he’s saying. I re-realized that with this book; I found I got the most out of the essays when it was quiet.
So, about the essays — the book is a collection of some of Berry’s essays on from the last thirty years, though I think the most recent was written in 1999. They touch on typical Berry subjects: the environment, place, community, conservation, farming. It wasn’t as extremist as I remember being Sex, Freedom, Economy & Community being (though there are several essays from that book here), but there was still food for thought.
And, as an interesting aside, I felt less guilty than usual while reading this book. I guess I have to back up a bit here: Berry makes me feel guilty. I guess it’s because I actually am persuaded by many of his arguments, and feel bad that I’m not doing more in my life. And since we’ve actually started making changes in our lives (read hubby’s post about that here) to conserve and to treat the world we live in better, I was able to read this book without the huge dose of guilt that has come along with reading Berry in the past.
Some other thoughts. I loved the first essay: “A Native Hill”. They called it a geobiography, and it was just beautifully written. Berry is such an evocative writer.
Perhaps it is to prepare to hear someday the music of the spheres that I am always turning my ears to the music of streams. There is indeed a music in streams, but it is not for the hurried. It has to be loitered by and imagined. Or imagined toward, for it is hardly for men at all. Nature has a patient ear. To her the slowest funeral march sounds like a jig. She is satisfied to have the notes drawn out to the lengths of days or weeks or months. Small variations are acceptable to her, modulations as leisurely as the opening of a flower.
There is one essay that hurt (I really can’t think of how else to put it). I was having a really bad day, as a mother, and I sat down to read “The Body and the Earth” and I got to a section entitled “Sexual Division”. And I read this:
This determinations that nurturing should become exclusively a concern of women served to signify to both sexes that neither nurture nor womanhood was very important. But the assignment to woman of a kind of work that was thought both onerous and trivial was the beginning of their exploitation… Women had become customers, a fact not long wasted on the salesmen, who saw that in these women they had customers of a new and most promising kind. The modern housewife was isolated from her husband, from her school-age children, and from other women. She was saddled with work from which much of the skill, hence much of the dignity, had been withdrawn, and which she herself was less and less able to consider important.
That’s exactly how I was feeling. Isolated. Like my life was a drudgery. It was emotional to see my feelings there on the page.
It was a good read. It is good to be reminded that nature is there and it is good, and an integral part of our lives, whether or not we live on a farm. That the real things in life: community, the growing season, nature, are what really matter. That technology and business isn’t the total sum of existence (and in fact, it just might do more harm than good). And if it takes an old crank from Kentucky to remind us of that, so be it.
The Book Nut 