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 Devil’s Arithmetic

4 Comments

The plot of the book by Jane Yolen first, this time: Hannah hates Passover. Hates going to her grandparent’s house. Hates that her Grandpa Will has fits of anger every time he sees pictures or hears about World War II and the “death camps”. But this year, when she opens the door to check for Elijah, she’s transported back. To 1942. Poland. And, yes, she ends up in one of the Nazi concentration camps.

I won’t tell you what happens after that.

Is this a good book? Well, yes. And no. It’s a book everyone should read. Like Schindler’s List is a movie everyone should see. And the Holocaust Museum is a place everyone should visit. It’s a powerfully written story. Simple and not graphic, yet you feel the weight of it. But, is it enjoyable? No. It’s disturbing. It’s haunting. It left me lying awake last night facing all the things I fear, which I usually push back into some far recess of my mind: driving, sending my girls to school, Russell being away, flying, running at 6:30 a.m. by myself, being attacked at night, having burglars break into the house while we’re home… I hate being confronted with the evil in the world. If I didn’t push my fears away — and that takes a lot of effort and prayer sometimes — then I would never leave the house! And I don’t like being confronted with them.

There are people who are inspired by stories of heroism like this one. I’m not one. I’m one of those who, while they acknowledge atrocities like this (and Rawanda and Darfur and Bosnia and…) happen, would much rather believe that the world is a happy place and that people are basically decent and kind. I want to stay in my happy place. And yet, I send my children out into the world, which, whether I like it nor not, is not a happy place. Yes, I’m conflicted by that. And I do try to prepare my children, though talking about strangers and kidnapping and abuse is hard for me (again, problems with confronting the evil in people).

Anyway… enough rambling. You should read this book. Everyone should, if only to acknowledge that these atrocities happened. But, I’m not sure this is one of those books to be read over and over. I know I won’t read it again.

Katherine

2 Comments

I think I picked this up from Guusje. She mentioned a while back (not going to find the post) that it was one of her favorite books. And, I have to say, it’s not a bad little bit of historical fiction. It’s one of those instances where I actually learned somthing from a fiction book. But, then, the amount of research that Anya Seton did to write this novel was admirable. (Okay, I’ll admit that I don’t have the book in front of me — it was due yesterday — so I’m going off the top of my head.) Reading Middle English, making sure even her minor characters were real people, having someone translate Latin. It made for a very authentic book. (We’ve talked about authentic books here before…)

The basic story: it’s the love story between John, Duke of Lancaster and Katherine Swynford. “Who?” you ask. It takes place in the mid- to late-14th-century, time of Chaucer (who shows up) and the black plague (which also shows up). John and Katherine have a 10 year affair, while John is married and after the death of Katherine’s husband, which results (in the long term) in children who become the parents of several kings of England. Not bad.

It held my interest and I enjoyed it for a long time. But… it’s a long book. And I’m short on time these days. Which adds up to me skimming the last 1/3. It all ends happily for John and Katherine, I’m happy to say. But I didn’t have the time to savor it. Or maybe I was just bored with all the plot twists and uprisings and courtly behavior. Whatever. Maybe I’ll come back to it someday.

Julie and Julia

3 Comments

First off, a couple of observations about this book:

1) Julie Powell has a tendency to use the f-word with abandon. It’s really not a big revelation: she admits that she has a total sailor mouth.

2) It’s not really a food book.

With that out of the way, I can honestly say that I enjoyed this book. Julie turned 29 (which makes her a year younger than me, since the book happens in 2002), and is stuck in a dead-end secretarial job working for a “government agency” in New York City. Depressed, she’s looking for… something… more. Her husband suggests a cooking class. She scoffs and said that she could learn as much from cooking through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. And thus, the “Project” is born. 365 days, 524 recipes.

It’s a funny book, though I thought that there was something missing. Perhaps it’s because I thought there’d be more about the food (it’s subtitled “My year of cooking dangerously” after all…). It’s mostly about her life (and her friends’ lives) with some witticisms about blogging, cooking in a tiny kitchen, killing lobsters, and eating calf livers. And I can totally relate to her wanting to accomplish something (even if it is “only” cooking her way through a Julia Child book) with her life. So, if you can get past the first two observations, it’s a pretty fun little read.

Rebel Angels

2 Comments

I was actually excited about this sequel to The Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray. I figured it would salvage the failed ending of Beauty, I would actually really like the characters (instead of half-heartedly liking them), and that it would be a good bit of youth fiction to follow up all the adult fiction I’ve been reading.

I bailed.

It’s not often I bail on youth fiction; more often than not, I enjoy youth fiction more than adult fiction. But — and I hate to say this, because it makes me sound all Evangelical anti-witchcrafty — this book gave me the creeps. Evil creepy feelings. Just not good.

It’s weirder than I remember the first one being — with Circe on the loose and spirits in the Realms being corrupted and evil dreams of people being drowned — with overtones of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and all those movies that I just can’t stomach.

So, to salvage my dreams and to keep my imagination from wandering too much, I quit. This book is for people who are less easily scared than I.

Tooth and Claw

2 Comments

What do you get when you cross Jane Austen with Anne McCaffrey? This chraming Victorian Dragon novel(Or is it a Dragon Victorian Novel?), by Jo Walton. It was a riot to read. The dragons acted like Victorian English: maidens couldn’t be without chaperones (I especially liked the way they “blushed” pink when they came into contact with the male dragons, which usually led to an engagement). They had a social system like the English: there were gently born dragons and servant dragons and lower class dragons. I loved the court scenes (there was a suit filed in the course of the story). I guess I just liked the whole premise of the story. Which, truth be told is quite simple: a father dies. The daughters go live with their siblings and find love. The son feels cheated out of his inheritance and takes his brother-in-law to court. Not much there. This book rides entriely on its premise. Thankfully, it’s a good one. Especially if you like Victorian novels and dragon books. Why not combine the two?

Book Group Blues

10 Comments

So, I had an altercation at book group last night (I’m just too dang opinionated. Gotta stop that.), which has made me stop and think about what I expect to get out of a book group. In the process of musing about this, I thought I’d ask those of you who drop by: do you attend a book group? Why? What do you want to get out of it?

Thanks.

Rachel and Leah

3 Comments

I have given my opinion of Orson Scott Card before. And I’ve come to the following conculsions: 1) he just can’t let things end. Rachel and Leah is the third in a series, and there’s going to be a fourth (for the good reason that the story was just too much for one book). Still. He does tend to draw things out. 2) I really like the first book I read in one of his series (Rebekah this time; I read them out of order), but the more I read, the less I like them. Maybe because they’re often the same story retold? 3) Card can’t write ancient women. Just can’t. I don’t know what they’re supposed to “really” be like, but I really doubt they had conversations with their betrothed about bearing children (and how it’s akin to the preisthood). He takes modern women and dresses them up in sandals and calls is Biblical. I felt The Red Tent was more authentic. And I didn’t even really like that one.

The good points: I liked how he balanced the four women. That’s a hard task, one that he did manage to pull off (in spite of my complaints). In my opinion, he tilted the scales in favor of Leah and Zilpah, rather than Rachel, as expected. I liked Leah, in the end, more than Rachel (perhaps that’s what he was going for in order to explain the whole wedding deception thing?). She was more honest, more forthright, more interesting. Maybe that’ll change in the next book.

In the end, I don’t know how I really think about this book. Nothing seems to leap to mind. Which is sad. Because Card can be a vibrant, exciting writer. I guess not just about Biblical women. (Maybe it’s that whole men writing about women thing again…)

Happy Birthday to Me

6 Comments

In honor of my 34th birthday, I thought I do a pseudo-meme in the spirit of those reports about what this year’s freshman class knows about/has experienced. Just because it’s interesing how much the world has changed in my lifetime.

Politcs/World Events: There have been seven presidents since I was born (though Nixon resigned when I was 2). I’ve voted in four presidential elections, but there has only been two presidents since I started voting.

I remember the Challenger explosion (I was at school); when AIDS was a big deal in this country; when the Berlin wall came down; Tiananmen Square; the day the first Gulf War started (I was in my dorm room at college); the Iran hostage crisis (third grade); and when the next big war was supposed to be with the Soviet Union (though, prophetically, I said in a high school government class that the next war would be in the Middle East; everyone laughed).

Life: I learned to skate on rollerskates with metal wheels. My first bicycle had a banana seat. I learned to drive on a stick shift. I slept on a waveless waterbed. I played outside for hours with the neighborhood kids without parental supervision. I learned to twirl a baton because it was the “in” thing.

Fashion: I have worn at any one time: bell bottoms, short shorts, culottes, knickers, wooden clogs, leggings with oversized sweatshirts, miniskirts, torn and pegged jeans, banana clips, big hoop earrings, shoulder pads and probably many other fashion trends I can’t think of right now. I have had a Dorothy Hamill bob, big permed hair, and feathered bangs. I have bleached my hair (but only on accident).

Music: I have listened to LPs, 8-tracks, tapes, and CDS, but not MP3s (yet). The first tape I bought was Lionel Ritchie’s “Can’t Slow Down”. My musical tastes evolved from John Denver/Neil Diamond to Prince/Michael Jackson to Rush/Boston to Sting/REM to Dixie Chicks/Sheryl Crow. My first concert was Barry Manilow. The last concert I went to was the Flatlanders. Or maybe Shawn Colvin.

TV: I remember watching the final episode of MASH. I watched (with my family) The Love Boat, the A-Team, Magnum P.I., Simon and Simon, and The Cosby Show. I mourned the cancellation of Misfits of Science. SNL was Dana Carvey, Dennis Miller, and Mike Meyers, not Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. I remember life before remote controls, the day we got our first VCR, and watching TV in black and white (though that was probably because my parents held off buying a color TV, and not because there weren’t any).

Movies: The first movie I have a vivid memory of is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was devastated the year ET lost the Oscar to Gandhi. I remember when going to a movie only cost a couple of dollars. I thought Xanadu, The Last Starfighter and War Games were just the best movies EVER. (But that has more to do with personal taste than my age.) I had a crush on Michael J. Fox for years.

Computers/Games: I learned code on a Commodore 64 (on a green and black screen). I remember: when Bill Gates was a struggling computer guy and Windows was just a copy of the Apple method; when modems were outside a computer and talking on a BBS was a novelty; when you had to go to an arcade to play video games; Pong, Pac Man (and Ms. Pac Man) and Tetris. I was really good at Tetris.

There’s probably a lot I’ve forgotten. Still, it’s been kind of fun to rememeber my almost 3 1/2 decades.