Since I like a little Challenge

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Now and again, and since my husband’s working Tuesday nights this semester, so I can’t go to my in-person book group, I thought I’d give Booklogged classics challenge a try. So, my list (to be finished by the end of February; we’ll see if that happens):
1. The Oddyssey, by Homer
2. Mrs. Mike, by Benedict Freedman (though this just barely makes the 50 years mark)
3. Alice in Wonderland (and possibly Through the Looking Glass), by Lewis Carroll
4. The Spy or Last of the Mohicans, James Fennimore Cooper
5. Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott

Bonus Book: The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I’d put that on my list, but I don’t have a great track record with big Russian novels.

Wish me luck!

On Fortune’s Wheel

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More than a year ago, I re-read Jackaroo by Cynthia Voigt and discovered that she’d turned it into a series. And I’d mentioned that I’d wanted to read the others. See: I do finally get around to things on my to-do list, even if it takes me a year. Honestly, though, I’d forgotten about my desire of a year ago, and checked this one out because everyone over at Sequestered Nook was raving about it. And not wanting to be left out, I felt I needed to read it.

I really enjoyed this one. I can’t compare it to Jackaroo (it took me most of the book to get the connection between the two); I really don’t remember much about the books after a while. (That’s why I keep the blog!) But, this one was interesting. I enjoyed the adventure. I enjoyed the subtle transformation of Birle from impetuous girl to a calm, assured one. I really enjoyed the ending. (Okay, I’m a sucker for happy endings!) Voigt is such a talented writer: in all her stories, the characters ring true, and the world doesn’t get in the way of the story. And that’s the case here. I loved Birle, Orien and Yul. I even felt sympathy for Joaquin the Philosopher. Her “bad guys” are complex as is her conflict. And it’s just a pleasure to read.

The Stinkers

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Belladonna asked a good question in her comment on my last post. And it got me thinking: what are the worst books I’ve ever read?

I could come up with two right off the top of my head: Zel by Donna Jo Napoli and The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I don’t remember why I had such a loathesome reaction to Zel. But I did. I hated it. And because of that, I’ve never read another book by Napoli becasue of it. The Sparrow I enjoyed for most of the book, but the end turned overly disturbing and explicit. I just felt nasty after finishing it. There are ways to do provocative that doesn’t have to be gross.

There are books I don’t like because of the language and/or explicit sexual content: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger and Neuromancer by William Gibson (though I didn’t finish this one) are three that come to mind in this category. Often I can look past the language, if the story or characters are sufficiently compelling. But in both of these cases, the language overtook the story and ruined it for me.

Interesting side note: much adult science fiction/fantasy falls into the worst book category. I love fantasy books, but too often the author spends too much time on the world and not enough on the story.

There are those chick-lit books I didn’t like because I just thought they were dumb: Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares, The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, and The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington. I know “dumb” is a subjective thing. What I find “dumb” might be really compelling to another person. And, admittedly, it might be compelling to me on another day. It took me years to get through Pride and Prejudice. I always thought it was “dumb”. Likewise, I found Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley to be really compelling the first time through, but by the third, it was pretty dumb.

Notice all those were chick lit. Hmm…

I could go on. But I won’t. What’s your worst book ever that you finished?

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

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Not being a complete die-hard Monty Python fan, I didn’t get the reference in the title of this book by Sarah-Kate Lynch. Completely missed it (Hhubby, on the other hand, picked it up immediatly). The opening quote clued me in: “What’s so special about the cheesemakers?”

Unfortunately, this kind of warped my expecations of the book. I guess I expected it to be a bit sillier (I mean, it’s Monty Python folks. They’re not exactly serious) than it was. Granted, it wasn’t a straight up anything, so I guess I wasn’t too far off the mark. I guess I wanted more belly laughs, though.

The basic plot is a bit convuluted. There’s Corrie and Fee (who has a tendancy to “know” what’s going to happen) who make Coolarney cheese in Ireland. There’s Avis and the pregnant vegetarian singing milkmaids (that’s a funny concept) who help run the cheese farm. (Well, they milk the cows, and thereby are the “secret ingredient”.) There’s Abbey, who’s Corrie’s granddaughter, and running from a real schlep of a husband. There’s Kit, who’s trying to dry out after going on a drinking binge after he “lost” his wife. There’s Jesus, Mary and All The Saints, the three cats. Who really don’t have much to do with the story, except for their funny names. And somehow, they all come together and make cheese.

When Hubby asked me how I liked this book, I said that it wasn’t great but it didn’t suck. I know that’s a wide range there, but really, that’s how I felt. It’s not the worst book I’ve ever read, but it’s not the best. Maybe more silliness would have helped.

Selling out

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This is just wrong.

I was going to go on a long rant about how terrible it is that Katherine Paterson has sold out and allowed this movie to be made. But, it’s late and I’m tired. Still, some movies just shouldn’t be made. At least not like this.

East

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I had a hard time finishing this book by Edith Pattou. Not because of the book, though. Because my life wouldn’t let me sit down and just savor this book like a wanted to. I finally did, about 3/4 of the way through, because it was just too compelling. So, I let the home and Christmas stuff wait for a night. 🙂

The story is a retelling of the old fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon. When I first read about this book in Chinaberry, I had no idea about the fairy tale, so we checked it out from the libarary as well. It’s a simple Norweigan fairy tale, one I think I’ve heard before. A white bear takes a girl from a poor family in exchange for wealth. He then takes her to live with him in his enchanted castle. It’s a fairly uneventful time, except that every night, someone comes to sleep with her in the bed. After a while, she aches to go home, and the white bear relents, with one condition: she must not be alone with her mother. She breaks this condition, tells her mother about the stranger in the bed, and her mother gives her a candle. Back at the castle she lights the candle and sees that it’s a man in the bed with her. Unfortunatly, though, with this act, she seals his fate: he’s taken away to marry the troll queen in the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. The girl then sets out to search for the man (whom she realized, too late, was the white bear). She walks for ages, picks up a golden spinning wheel, loom and harp, until the north wind takes her to the castle. There she trades the wheel, loom and harp for visits to the prince, finally succeeding in waking him up and breaking the troll queen’s curse.

East follows the basic fairy tale fairly well, but since I wasn’t attached to the original tale, I had no problems with Pattou’s changes to the story. She fleshes out the family, giving them reasons and motivations behind the departure of the girl (Rose, in the book). The relationship between Rose and the white bear is fleshed out. And the whole journey to find the bear is completely different. Rather than relying on magic, Rose relys on friends, common sense, and plain old inginuity. And, yes, she finally succeeds in the end, and it’s a completely satsifying success. Even the little (mostly unecessary) epilogue in the end doesn’t detract from the great ending to the story.

It was a wonderful book. Perhaps it was good that it took me so long to read. Maybe I enjoyed it more that way.

March

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First. It’s been a whopper of a week. We closed on our house on Monday, the 20th, and then spent the rest of the week prepping the house for our move on Saturday. Carpet people, vinyl/laminate people, cleaning (if you EVER sell a house, PLEASE clean it for the next owner. It SUCKS having to clean a house just to make it livable, and it’s still not done!), painting (the room was such a mess, M refused to move in until it was painted), packing, moving, hauling trash, and unpacking. Which gets us to today. Things are mostly unpacked. I’m happy to see our books, which have been in storage for the last four months. It makes me feel like I’m finally settled.

On top of all that, I tried to read Geraldine Brook’s March. I was excited about this one: she takes Mr. March from Little Women, imagines a backstory and fills in for the time that he’s missing in the book, until he gets ill and Marmee comes and gets him. Granted, I only got about 5 chapters in (it was a busy week), but I never could get into the book. It just didn’t feel right. I know, I didn’t exactly love Little Women. Still. I think it’s one of those books that everyone has their opinions about, and reactions to, and to… well, mess with the book is just wrong. Mr. March was too extreme in his views — too vegetairan, too abolitionist, too… too! — to make him the loving, caring, quiet father of the March girls. And Brooks tried to weave in the story line from Little Women, and it just didn’t fit with the wartime scenes, and the flashes of backstory that she gave him.

In the end, I put it down. It didn’t hold my interest, and at the end of some very long days it wasn’t what I wanted to be reading. Maybe someday I’ll try again. But probably not.

At the Sign of the Star

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I am completely ambivalent about this book by Katherine Sturtevant. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. It was just there.

The plot’s simple enough. Meg, the daughter of a bookseller in 17th century London, is upset because her father remarries, and she will lose her inheritance if/when her step mother has a baby. She has to learn to deal with the fact of a new stepmother (after 4 years of being alone with her father). She has to learn to deal with her life as a young woman (she’s 12 for half, 13 for the otherhalf) and learning all the “wifely arts” (she’s a reader, and would much rather work in the bookstore).

The most fascinating part was the talk of writers in London in the late 1600s. The plays, the books, the fact that there were woman authors. But, there wasn’t enough of it for my taste.

Maybe I’m just suffering from good book let down. The book after a really good one is never great, right?

Sad News (and The Game)

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Sad News.

The Game.

Ah.

I left Michigan 16 years ago (to go to college in Utah), but my (football) heart still bleeds Blue and Gold.

This was taken Christmas morning in 1989; cut me some slack. The sweatshirt was in honor of Bo’s last Rose Bowl as a coach. They lost. Sigh. My mom called it the “California Factor.”

Here’s hoping they win today. It would do honor to Bo’s memory.

Uptdate, 11/19: They lost. But they put up a good fight, and it was a good game. To heck with Bo’s memory. 🙂 OSU is a great team. It’ll be interesting to see what happens next with the BCS and the national championship. But really, is there any need to play another game? OSU deserves the championship. And that’s coming from a Michigan fan.

How Green was my Valley

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I can’t find enough good to say about this book. It was simple, poignant, honest, beautifully written, and totally engaging. However, when one asks, “What is this book about?”, it’s hard to say. It’s about a boy becoming a man. It’s about love. It’s about family. It’s about the disadvantage the worker has with the owners. It’s about coal mining. It’s about… life.

I felt a real connection to this book. My “people” as my grandmother calls them were coal miners in England. In fact, that’s why my mother’s side of the family came to America. Things weren’t going so well in the mines in England (something which Richard Llewellyn touches on in the book), so they immigrated to America to work in the mines in Wyoming. They were probably much like the characters in the book. At one point, Huw (don’t ask me how to pronounce that; in fact, if someone could tell me, I’d appreciate it), loses his chance at a scholarship to Oxford because he beats up a teacher. (Long story. Read the book to find out). His father laments because he wanted something “better”. Huw wants to work in the mines. His mother supports him in that: it’s been good enough for her husband and all her other sons, why not Huw? I got to thinking about how my family got out of the coal mines. Accidents, illness… I wonder if any left by choice?

My only complaints were the lack of information about time passing, but I think that’s nitpicking on my part. That, and I felt like it just petered out at the end, rather than having a good solid ending. But the rest of the book was so wonderful, I can forgive the little things. A great book.