Tag: books

books, reading

The Great American Read

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PBS has been sponsoring “the great American read” for months now. The fact that they are supporting reading in this manner is amazing. The number of celebrities that have joined this giant Public Service Announcement that reading is good makes me smile. Does RIF still exist? Reading IS fundamental!!!  And so, in the great American tradition, I had to see how I did against the list of books they determined as “Great.”

By the numbers:

First cut, I was proud to see I had read over 50% of them already – 53 to be exact.

From the total “I have not read yet” list, I have acknowledged to myself I will NEVER read 14 of them. Just because they are great does not mean I need to read them.  I have done my duty in school to reading those books that you “should” and I don’t need to do that anymore.  That leaves me with a total of 33 titles that I should consider adding on the “To Be Read” list (already at 104 titles before this exercise).

By the titles:

As I examine the list of books, I see many titles that I have loved, some I have hated, and some that make me shake my head. Starting with the last category – Fifty Shades of Grey?  A sub-genre of erotica, in the few passages I read, I found this to be poorly written, poorly edited, and not Great at all. If this is the bar to beat, then I don’t understand where people are. Just because it sold so many copies doesn’t mean it is a great read.  Flowers in the Attic, while completely captivating and enjoyable, wasn’t my idea of Great, also.  To place Pillars of the Earth in the same category of greatness with The Notebook seems incongruous to me.  While Nicholas Spark touched our souls with the gentle tale of love, the Follett book riveted me with the sheer scope and detail of not only the people, but also the architecture.  How many books have a sequel that took over ten years and created such excitement when it finally hit the shelves?

Then there are the books that I was told would be GREAT, but I didn’t agree. A Confederacy of Dunces I found incredibly annoying, and I truly didn’t care what happened to Oscar Wao in his brief life, wondrous or not.  I guess each person has their own taste.

What to vote for:

As I review the list of books left that I have read, I am torn.  How do I choose a favorite? These titles all touched me, helping me to become the person I am today.  So, in alphabetical order, so as not to influence your views on the titles, here are some of my impressions on the books I believe should get votes for the best book in America:

  • 1984 by George Orwell: the original dystopian novel for me.
  • A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving: knowing who you are and accepting your role in the world
  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M.Montgomery: Anne with an E still makes me want to go to Prince Edward Island to find my bosom friend
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller: A masterpiece of sarcasm and absurdity
  • Dune by Frank Herbert: My first science fiction EVER. The mark was set very high
  • The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: Still remember the feeling of dust in my mouth as I read this. Ending haunts me still.
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald: the struggle of them and us continues today
  • The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy: Spy novel extraordinaire.
  • The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan: Language transports you to China to live what moms do for their children and what the lessons they try to impart on their children are
  • The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: the middle ages came to life before my eyes
  • The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: my introduction to the Code – be true to yourself always. And while he is known as a chauvinist, Lady Brett was the first heroine I remember that lived this code openly too.

Feel free to share your Great American Title here – if it made the list of 100 or not.

books, reading

End of Summer/Starting Anew

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The days of summer are coming to an end. I live in a town that does not start school until after Labor Day, unlike so many other towns around us. That does mean we go later in June, and I am truly ok with this. Some traditions seem good to me, like only wear white anytime between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That one just seems practical – reflect the sun, less sloppy weather to get on the clothes, etc….

But I digress.  As the summer comes to an end, a new school year is upon us. New Year ideas and plans are fresh on my mind. My plans for this school year are all about setting up the study spaces differently, planning lunches ahead of time, updating the calendar of family activities in the hallway, and monitor screen time more aggressively.  No, I will not keep track of my success criteria on these.

As I reflect back on this year, I see my son growing taller than me (not necessarily a HUGE feat, but a milestone in itself). I see my daughter looking ahead, starting to plan for her own future, including driving lessons. I see my old friends continuing down the path of life, and know they were the right choice because after all these years, when we are together it is as if nothing has changed. And I see my dad, struggling with his physical decline, always with a smile and his motto – “I am doing the best I can with the tools I have left.” I see all this wonderful growth and community, and I want to keep going. That is a reason I started this journey with you.

And to continue this journey, I have decided to track the places I read. I set my aim to read from over 100 different cultures, with no timeline, at the outset. I searched the web for “around the world books”, and found a few interesting sites (taleaway and bookriot among them). I mapped my titles to countries and counted. From the list of 100 countries, I have read from 50 of them.  Shocking! Was this a goal I had without knowing it?

So what about the good old US of A? Have I read enough of my own country? Back to the web to collect information on the states I have read.  I have read books that are set in 37 of the 50 states and DC.  Amazement!!

These are all the more striking, since I have travelled physically to 9 countries and 26 states.  Thank goodness for books taking me travelling!

And so begins my “At Home Travel Log” to fill in the blanks for my New Year.  I will be doing this within my regular reading, so it will not be my only focus for book selection. I am stating this for no other reason than my TBR list is already in excess of 100 titles, and I continue my attempt to borrow most books I read from the public libraries.  Take a look at the lists, and let me know if you have any suggestions for the places I need to travel.

book-review, books, Family Drama, literature, reading

Eleanor Oliphant has been here

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A typical crisis for me is there are too many book to choose from. After picking book group titles last week, I had to read another title I proposed that others had already read.  Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, was a joy.

At times reminiscent of The Rosie Project or A Man Called Ove, this fish out of water story had a bit of a dark twist.  While stumbling into real life, Eleanor is forced to face her past instead of drowning it in vodka. She begins to plan for a life with a man she has never met. As she executes this plan, she begins “self improvement” with a new haircut, new clothes, and new makeup. Outside of this plan, however, are interactions with people in ways she is unfamiliar with. Raymond, the tech support at her office, and Sammy, the person they helped when in distress on the street, provide her with more support than she knew she needed.

In fact, when she first met Raymond he found a virus on her computer and was able to clean it so it would be more effective. Same could be said of how he helped Eleanor. There were people to help around her always, she just needed to have some programs tweaked to have her work effectively with them. Another metaphor in the story is how she sets to cleaning her apartment. It transforms from a sad, uncared for space into a bright space looking for interesting things to add to the walls. She was a sad, uncared for person (she thought), but when she cared enough to buy herself things more than “useful” she is no longer just her scars, but a beautiful woman.

And while the dark part of the story was not hard to guess at due to the clues, the fact that she had so successfully fallen through the cracks of the system that was to help her was a sad comment on those the legal system that is meant to protect children.

books, reading

eReader or Books – what to pack for vacation

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The beautiful thing about an eReader is you can take a large number of books with you, but not have the extra weight.  They do not, however, feel the same.  While I prefer to read them myself, I have been using my library’s audiobooks to help me through my commutes daily (17 miles should really not take an hour or more, but sadly it does). That being said, when you are packing up for a week at the beach, and you are only one of 4 in the car, you don’t want to bring too many books.  So I downloaded my Goodreads Decathalon book on my phone, popped my library book and my kindle in my bag, and we were off to the races.  Since I am unable to ride the bike or kayak due to my knee, I was set for poolside.

First day, I finished the Thirty Nine Steps, and was a bit disappointed – I was hoping for more excitement and chases, but I forgot when it was written – but it was a pleasant read.   Next day, I read my library book.  And then to my horror – we maxed out the devices allowed for free.  I didn’t have enough books downloaded on the kindle yet!!!!  I read Life after Coffee, a book I was cautious about, not being able to be picky as it was the only book downloaded I had not read yet.  The book was actually perfect for me!  While it is about coffee, the main character is a woman that is the bean buyer for a small boutique coffee venture, it is more about the need to have balance in life.  Amy is the breadwinner of her family, with her husband staying home with her two kids.  As the story begins, you see them struggling to accept that she needs to go away again for weeks.  When she is abruptly out of a job, she begins the struggle of becoming a stay at home mom, all the animosity that comes from mom’s that judge her for needing to work away from the house, and her own guilt on not being a good parent.  All moms – those that are working full time at home, full time at an office, or part time at each, have struggled with the guilt and anger of being judged.  Coming to terms with this, and all the choices that she has made to get her to this place, leads her to make decisions that I didn’t see coming, but was very glad it happened.  Instead of the pat hallmark movie ending, this one had a twist that didn’t allow for the woman to give everything up to get what she wanted.

And then I went for coffee.  Starbuck’s wifi helped me out.  I downloaded everything I could from my amazon account, and set to make the decision about what to read next.  In order to not get into a bind, I figured that I should read a book that is known to be longer, so I didn’t end up chewing through everything too fast so I would have nothing else to read.  Thus, I downloaded The Name Of the Rose and Nobel House.  I had started reading the first one, but didn’t get past 6 % when I realized, I just didn’t care.  It was the second time I had tried it, but I was not going to torture myself if it wasn’t catching me.  On to Nobel House.  This book, first published in 1981, is a tome on Business and Hong Kong history.  Well written, I don’t know if it was because I was reading this non-stop as my only distraction, but I found I was getting bored with the huge number of details provided about the people, their ancestors, the political history, and the relationships.  There were a few key players, Ian, Gront, Line, Casey, Brian and Armstrong, but after I skipped about half 3 days in, I don’t feel I missed anything in the story.  It was a good diversion, but I feel like I was ready to move on to a new book after that last day.  And so I did.

Today, I started The Muralist.  Looks interesting – learning about the art world of WPA, like in Mary Coin, and a mystery on how the aunt disappears.  I will let you know what I learn.  Unfortunately, my reading time will be less next week.  My boss is expecting me back at work.  I really will need a lot of coffee to get there!

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book-review, books, literature, mystery, reading

What a Klutz!!

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This has been a week unlike any other. Let’s just say when you are in the ER thinking you broke your knee and get a call that your father is in the hospital with a broken knee, things seem a bit weird in the world.

I am comforted to know that my life is not stranger than fiction. Especially since I fell soon after I finished a dark and disturbing book, Behind Closed Doors. I don’t even have it a fraction of what Grace has going in this book. While not necessarily to best writing ever, it keeps coming back to me at different times as I sort through the emotions it evokes. In the same vein as Gone Girl and Girl on a Train, the story examines the evil that exists in world, just behind the curtains. If I say anymore, I am afraid I will give the whole thing away.

As a counterpoint to this, being the person who has spent way too much time in ERs waiting for xrays, I took a book with me. First one I grabbed, thank goodness, was a light read that I was able to put down and pick up often without getting too lost. The Forever Summer fit that bill perfectly. While slightly far flung, this is a Hallmark movie waiting to be made. And sometimes, you just need that.

I followed this up with The Most Beautiful Book in the World: Eight Novellas. Each story is beautifully written, and points to the most beautiful thing in the world – love in all its various forms. The best way to enjoy this is to read each story on its own, and savouir the emotions it invokes before moving to the next.

And now I feel restored in mind, if not body. While my knee is no longer the size of a watermelon, it is the color of eggplant. As I work through this, I will keep reminding myself of the lessons in the last 2 books I mentioned – there is good when you look for it.

books, read around the world, reading

Bookpacking the World

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I have been thinking a lot about travelling lately.  It’s not something I do that often anymore. At one point in my life I think I was on a plane at least once a month.  Now that the kids are home from camp, all they want to do is go away.  And they have plenty of ideas of where to go (and no concept of what it costs.)  Of course, I translate this to reading – that’s what I do.  I started to think about where I have read in relation to where I have been.

Thus far, I have identified that I have been to 10 countries, 18 states, and 30 cities (that I count as “visited”) but I will probably remember more.  After doing a fast review of my completed titles, I seem to be centered on fiction located in Asia, Middle East, Europe and North America.

Books set in Asia tend to be focused on China or India.  These cultures have always fascinated me.  The deep history, and the struggles between the sexes and classes are an endless source for tales of strength and redemption.  Recent favorites from here include Lisa See’s The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, Camron Wright’s The Rent Collector, and Nadia Hashimi’s The Pearl That Broke Its Shell. These stories touch upon the struggles of being women in cultures that do not value them, as well as the difference between the “haves” and “have nots” in those societies. They do not, however, leave you feeling downtrodden, but with hope for a better future.

While the battles between the sexes are not as pronounced in Europe, the number of stories that have captivated me remains a big draw.  With the focus on the royal family, with births, weddings, retirements and more, I have been reading some fun fictionalizations about the Queen.  Mrs Queen Takes the Train and The Uncommon Reader are perfect if you want to see the Queen in a very human light.  For a wonderful fictional account of the history of England, there are few (if any) that could challenge Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge Trilogy (Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and A Column of Fire), or his more contemporary Centuries Trilogy  (Fall of Giants, Winter of the World, and Edge of Eternity).  Zadie Smith’s On Beauty takes on the ever present challenges of race differences, JoJo Moyes takes on love and rights, and the plentiful mysteries set there make it easy to find a book located there.

For books set in the Middle East, I have focused on Afghanistan and Israel.  The beautiful yet sad reality that is brought to life by Khaled Hosseini is made more poignant with each book he writes.  The Kite Runner and And The Mountains Echoed, while amazing, are actually not my favorite. A Thousand Splendid Suns continues to resonate with me, years after I finished it.   And as the wars have scarred Afghanistan, reading modern Israeli writers show that the years of conflict have taken a toll on the psyche of the Israeli people. Bethany Ball illustrates this well in What to Do About The Solomons, as does Edeet Ravel in One Thousand Lovers and Look for Me.  Capping this is the memoir written by Laura Blumfeld Revenge: A Story of Hope, that illustrates how complicated the hatred between people can be.

And while I have not focused a large amount on Africa and South America, I have read books based there, also.  Favorites in Africa include Americanah, Things Fall Apart, and Poisonwood Bible. Beautifully written, complex emotions and cultural structures are explored and explained within the pages of these books.  In Latin America, I have just finished Ten Women, and will continue to explore titles in this region to continue to expand my cultural horizons.

I will continue to seek out books centered in other cultures, because I live in a world that keeps shrinking.  We need to know as much about other people as possible, because we keep bumping into everyone on the tiny planet of ours.

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books, reading

To book group or not…..

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What is a book group?  Is it a place where people come carrying the book reverently to make sage pronouncements on someone else’s story? Dissect it with the skill of a surgeon, laying the structure and content out for all to examine in a slightly different way.  Or is it a group of people who come with bottles of wine, heaps of food, and, if remembered at all, a well-worn book?  Is it none of the above? Or all of the above?  For me, the answer is all of the above.  Each grouping of people bring different experiences, expectations and egos to the room.  The key is knowing your audience, and yourself.

When I was young, I discovered that I loved sharing my ideas about books I had read with others.  Part of this love, however, was that I was showing off my ability to see the depth of the books, parse the content and dissect the structure. I joined a group that met at a bar (The Colorado Library if you can believe – on the East Coast!!) and read The Bend in the River, The Remains of the Day and Palace Walk.  We were cosmopolitan and globally minded and our reading reflected this view of ourselves.

I then began leading a book group for a volunteer organization to help a community center in the city build a library for their neighborhood.  How perfect – mixing my love of learning with a group of people that were working to make life better for others.  We chose provocative titles, biographies, memoirs and novels, opening me up to new writers.  A Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Caucasia by Danzy Senna, and The color of water by James McBride.  I had grown to expand my reading and what I defined as my community.

After a few years, that group disbanded (the library opened), and I took a break to have kids and read Sandra Boynton, E.B. White and JK Rowling.  Once I finished the Harry Potter series aloud, I was ready again for a book group.  I began leading a group of women that focused on Jewish topics – past, present, and future.  I approached this as I did the last one, but it never fully realized that scholarly tone I had thought was needed, because I had grown to realize it was not needed to convey my messages.  Each discussion began about the book, and evolved to other things, like politics.  I was actually fascinated to learn that a nuclear scientist in the group thought the Iran Nuclear Deal was a good one, and cited scientific facts for why.  And I am so very glad that I started this group with a bottle of wine, macarons, and an assortment of petit fours to match The Paris Architect by Charles Balfoure.  That caught on, and we had a ball.

Fast forward a few year, and at a social event I became re-acquainted with someone who was involved with the Goodreads community.  I joined up, and have been having fun with that, too.  I am now invited to a real life group that will be reading a heavier book, The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne, and I am excited to meet and talk to smart people.

And one night I was on my friend’s porch with a group of friend.  I looked around and I saw a group of incredible women that were all pursuing life with passion and wanted to make connections with others.  That night I decided that I would launch my own group – which still needs to be named – where we would pick deliberately lighter books and use the time together to “discuss the book” – heavy on the “” -and make our own community.  And so, this past week I gathered friends from different places in my life, opened a bottle of wine, put out cupcakes, and let the conversation flow. And while we didn’t do the book any justice with an examination, we had a great time.  And agreed that the next meeting will be at an ice cream parlor.

So when you are invited to a book group, don’t always feel that you need to have read a book completely and are ready to analyze it from stem to stern.  Sometimes it’s okay to just use that time to be together.  And just like choosing who you play golf with – make sure you have the right group to make sure it meets your needs.  Because sometimes, it’s just good to pick up the ball and walk to the next hole while enjoying your friends.

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books, reading

How do you let go of the world you live in and move on? Or How to choose the next book you will read

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Leaving behind a world when you put down a book can be hard.  You have been invested in these people’s lives, and now the story is over – if you want it to be or not.  Sometimes there are other ways to continue (the next book in the series), and sometimes there are not.  Either way, you need to re-enter your own reality, and then decide how to move on.

If you are anything like me, you become fully vested and are impacted by the people we visit in our books.  When I finish a book I need some time to process what I have just experienced and re-enter my own world.  Some books need more processing than others.  A Walk Across the Sun by Corban Addison, an amazingly written and compelling story about a very difficult topic, left me stunned for days after.  Even now, months later, I am impacted by the story.  Other books do not leave as deep an imprint upon me, and are easier to move on from.

So, how then do we choose our next book?  As always, that depends.  I have been challenged to find the “perfect” answer and have tried different ways, all with hit or miss results.  Here are some of the ways I have tried.

I maintain lists of books that have been recommended to me either directly or from another source, such as Princeton Book Review, Wall Street Journal, and even Buzzfeed Books.  I keep these with information on the book in the list, and see what hits me as interesting at that time.  It was from these sources that I found A Walk Across the Sun.

If you are part of a book group, you can easily use that as the next book to read.  If you finish that one in plenty of time, it can be great to read others by that author or on that topic to have a deeper discussion around the original book.  As a book group facilitator myself, I do this.  My group read Look for Me by Edeet Ravel. I didn’t realize when the book was selected that it was a second one in a trilogy.  I was so captivated by the writing and the mood this book I immediately went to read Ten Thousand Lovers, the first book.

I receive books from friends and family that they think I need to read.  I will pick these up when I have some open time and nothing that I am burning to read.  My mother-in-law keeps trying to give me her old books, but I have read most of them already.  My mother, who is currently a member of 3 book groups, also gives me books and book titles (she is another library user – that is where I got it from.)

I try different websites, and the Goodreads.com recommendations of IF YOU LIKED THIS BOOK YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE…..  all with varying levels of success.

In short, like how you meet new people, you need to just put yourself out there and start the relationship in as many ways as possible, because you never know when you will meet “the one”.

books, reading

Graphic Novels: Complex themes/unorthodox medium – an examination in the similarities of Maus and Persepolis

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This year I have been striving to be open to read different types of books than I normally would.  As part of a book group challenge on Goodreads.com, I started looking for illustrated books for adults.  What I found was so much more than comic books.

As I looked through titles, I noticed Maus, a book I had not heard of before.  My husband, and other East Coasters I spoke with had all read this in high school. I got this from the library (I am attempting to not spend money on a book this year, and our library is so amazing I want to support them), and started reading.  By the time I put the book down later that day, I was already itching to read the second one, which I did the next day.

A month later, my daughter asked me to proofread a paper for school on Persepolis, a graphic novel about the overthrow of the Shah in Iran in the late 1970s.  This time I requested BOTH volumes 1 and 2 at the same time.  That turned out to be a smart move.

In addition to both sets of graphic novels leaving me wanting more, there were striking similarities between these.  Both were autobiographical, dealing with war and oppression.  The dark themes of losing yourself, of exile from home, and of leaving behind pain are shown.  The method of the graphic novel, while making things seem “more casual” actually illuminate the history of two corrupt regimes very well.  Both periods in history show how brutal people can become in the quest for power.  The pictures help make the horrors easier to face.  There are no real faces or photos, creating a barrier for both the reader and the writer to get through the story. Maus goes so far as to depict Jews as mice, Germans as Cats and Poles as pigs, a further statement on the state of humankind.

Underpinning both stories of survival and self-discovery, both books exhibit the traits of survivor’s guilt.  Persepolis’ Marji had been able to escape the ravages of war and oppression as a displaced and lonely teenager in Vienna, but needed to return to her home before realizing she didn’t fit in there, either.  She was ultimately able to leave her country behind, but never her guilt of leaving.  It was only with the second departure that she understood that her mother, while loving her deeply, wanted Marji to live in a world where she could be more than was being allowed in Iran.

Within Maus, the survivorship takes on more layers.  Not only did he exist in the shadow of his dead brother who died in the war as did the majority of the family, but Art survived of his own mother’s suicide.  It was Art’s dealing with this guilt in an underground comic strip that lead him to ask his father’s story – to learn more of his mother.

As noted in Persepolis, it will take generations for the people to truly heal. Both stories show the evils of extremism and intolerance.  If we could all look at the world with the veil over our eyes to see only drawings, maybe we can see the complex truth in the simple lines.

 

books, literature, reading

My Journey Begins

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Thanks for joining me!

“For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived”  Louis L’Amour

My love with reading goes back to when I was a child.  I would lose myself in a book that made my world so much more fun and exciting.  I remember reading under the covers with flashlights and hiding books under my bed. In middle school, I was asked to run the student bookstore.  By the time I could get a “real” job, I was a page at our public library.  I continued to work at libraries throughout my college career.  The libraries, be them public or restricted, general or specialty, all called to me.  They were a safe place to be, full of friends and opportunities.

While I pursued a career outside of library science, my love of books and libraries has never waned.  I achieved a graduate degree at night school while I was working full time.  As graduation gifts my friends all gave me novels – the thing I missed most when I had homework.  I helped launch a book group for a non-profit organization, which I led for 3+ years before moving on.  I married and had children, bringing me back to books I loved.  My children loved to read with me.  They were in pre-school and kindergarten when they asked for a WII.  My husband and I decided they had to read 100 books together in order to earn this.  We didn’t care they were early readers or picture books, but they had to add the titles to the list on the fridge when they were done.  We have used this for other things too.

Then I turned 49.  A good friend asked me what I was going to do in my 50th year.  That got me thinking – what should I do?  That was when I created what I called the 50 for 50 challenge for myself.  I would read a best seller from the New York Times best seller list from the week of my birth for each year I have been alive, avoiding any re-reads and selecting from the top 10 (not necessarily the number one).

 Since that time I have continued to track my books, in excel.  I can look back and see if I have read something, and know how many I have read.  In the past few months people have begun to ask me for recommendations of books.  That made me think I should share my thoughts on titles I have read and want to read.  This is my journey – to share my love of reading with others so we can all be better people.

The blog title comes from The Source – James A Michener’s book.  This title that was number one on the New York Times Best Seller List on the day I was born.  I look forward to sharing this journey with you all.

Karen