4 Books

Let's do this quick and dirty, shall we?

Oh my, how I loved David Levithan's Boy Meets Boy. I'm not sure I can say much about it, because I don't want to say it wrong. The romance between Paul and Noah is delightful (and I swooned when Paul described Noah as his "until"). This book made me cry more than once, but especially when Tony stood up to his mom and then broke down...it killed me. Seriously. I can't talk rationally about this book at all. I loved it. Let's move on...

...to Dreamland, by Sarah Dessen. Dessen is a really popular author in our library, but before this, I didn't really know much about her. I just assumed, from the girls who were checking out her books and the incredibly generic cover art, that she was writing inconsequential romances. Which was not great on my part - I can admit it. It took me a while to really get into this book. Until about halfway in, I really didn't like any of the characters (except Boo and Stewart) and I was annoyed with Caitlyn (it's never good to find your narrator annoying). I didn't get her fascination with Rogerson (and his name is Rogerson, for crying out loud), or why she wanted to spend time with him on drug runs and getting high (to be honest, I'm still not totally clear on that). The second half was like an entirely different book - maybe it was intentional, lulling the reader into the same stupor that Caitlyn found herself in, only to smack them awake and leave them white-knuckled and anxious for the rest of the book. Because seriously, the second half of the book was a psychological thriller, and Caitlyn's terror and shame were palpable. As frustrating as the first half was, I still think this is a pretty good book, and an important topic.

Side note: Dreamland was published when I was in high school, making me approximately Caitlyn's age. So many of the little details were particularly familiar and weirdly nostalgic.

Not a book for class (the other three are). I just really wanted to read it. Erin Jade Lange's Butter is about an obese (423 lbs) teen who decides to kill himself by eating himself to death, live on the internet. For all of that, it is surprisingly uplifting. I'm not sure what else to say about it, without giving a lot away. I liked that the characters were fairly complex - the narrator, nicknamed Butter after a cruel incident of bullying, is not always likable; the bullies are not always horrible. I thought the ending was a little trite, but I have very few complaints otherwise.

Last, and, sorry to say, least, is Twilight. I had vowed to skip this one, so imagine my dismay when it turned up on my class reading list. Ugh. It is 75% dragging and tiresome, with about 25% halfway decent story buried within all that. It would benefit greatly from some ruthless editing. And from a lot less creepiness and traditional gender norms. Blergh. I don't usually think about the length of books, especially YA books. In fact, there are a lot of 500-700 page YA books that I can get through in a day or two. I read this one fast, but it felt loooooooooooooong.

Seventeenth Summer

There hasn't been a lot of free time for reading in the last couple weeks (and there will be even less between now and next Saturday - thank you, graduate school), but I did manage to finish Maureen Daly's Seventeenth Summer. It's another book for my class next semester, so documenting some thoughts about it is the responsible thing to do. Even without that, I'd still want to talk about it. So here we go...

Seventeenth Summer was written in 1942. Maureen Daly was in college when she wrote it; the author bio at the end of the book (which must be the original) charmingly remarks that because she was so young, Daly "recaptured with extraordinary freshness and sensitivity an experience that, because of its very nature, no older author can touch." I could point to some contemporary YA fiction written by fully-grown adults that would contradict that statement, but whatever. I really wanted to focus on the 1942 thing. The cover to the left is the one I have, from a 2010 printing. It looks like the cover of any Sarah Dessen or Deb Caletti book and hides the 70(!)-some years separating it from those contemporary authors. Of course, that age gap becomes almost immediately clear when you actually start reading - you are shoved headlong into the 40's, where cigarette smoking was de rigueur among teenagers, where kissing was risque, where people seriously debated the necessity of bread delivery, since so many people were still baking their own bread. It's kind of like Mad Men, without the self-awareness and wink-wink sexism (I like Mad Men and I can't wait to get caught up on the fifth season, but pushed up against something like this, actually created in a past decade, it can seem rather painfully artificial).

For the most part, I found Seventeenth Summer to be old-fashioned without becoming dated, which is a compliment. It is sweet without being saccharine, and Daly makes moments of Angie and Jack's fairly chaste courtship seem just as breathless as any contemporary YA romance. Though their relationship is innocent, the book itself is surprisingly sensual. It is as much a story about a season in a very specific place as it is about a teenage romance during that season. Angie and Jack's romance is linked to the natural world, growing and ripening just like summer tomatoes. Jack and Angie's first conversation happens in the vegetable garden in early June: "The little tomato plants were laid flat against the ground from last night's downfall and there were puddles like blue glass in the hollows." Their early relationship is as fragile and fresh and miraculous as those new vegetable plants. And it ends where it began - on a late-August night, with frost predicted, Jack and Angie go out to salvage as many tomatoes as they can:

Most of the green leaves were dead and the knobby vines were already wet with night dew. We worked side by side, not talking at first, feeling about in the half-darkness for the tomatoes, and soon our hands were wet to the wrists and the rough wool of my sweater chafed. Even my fingers felt stiff. But somehow it was so natural to be working beside Jack that I didn't want to stop, even for a moment.

I really enjoyed how grounded this book was. The way Daly describes those different hallmarks of summer - how the lake changes as the summer wears on, eating wild grapes in the dark, the arrival of the swallows on the telephone wire heralding the end of summer - made me feel summer. I can't really explain beyond saying that it reminded me in that way of Lauren Oliver's Delirium, which I assure you is a high compliment (it wasn't just the sensuality - Oliver's world is also incredibly chaste, though for sci-fi reasons). It also made me a little sad that my sense of time passing is not as linked to the natural world (though feeling of seeing the swallows on the telephone wire was achingly familiar). By the by, it also reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle. All three books transported me, in a very specific way...and I can't explain it any better than that.

(We won't write analyses in this class I'll be taking, but if we did, this might be the book I'd choose to write about, with a focus on the parallels between Jack and Angie's relationship and the evolution of summer.)

Yikes.

Let me just say, it's been a busy month. Not a great excuse, but its all I've got. I've had a lot of projects for class, plus outside plans, plus Thanksgiving and all of its attendant activities...there hasn't been much time for reading or writing about reading. That said, I have read a couple of books since the 7th (can it really have been that long?).

So we'll start with James Dashner's Maze Runner prequel, The Kill Order. It takes us back as far as the first day of sun flares and follows a kid named Mark and the rag-tag group he takes up with through their first post-apocalyptic year. The appearances by recognizable characters are few and far between - in fact, if you took out the prologue and epilogue, this book could exist as a standalone novel. A really violent, depressing standalone, but still. That's my basic takeaway - it's a grim, violent book that does not hold out much hope for the future. It does move incredibly quickly and does not let up. Of the three Maze Runner books, it reminded me most of my favorite, The Scorch Trials. Overall, it's not a bad addition to the trilogy, although it didn't answer as many questions as I would have hoped.

The second book was Frank Portman's King Dork. This is one of those books for class, so I feel like I should have some really insightful things to say about it...we'll see. In my hunt for a picture of the cover, I came across an article about casting for the movie version (Nick Offerman...I'm there). This article included the Amazon summary, which is kind of misleading, so let's start there. This is not a book about a nerdy guy whose life is changed when he discovers the book The Catcher in the Rye (though you might be forgiven for thinking that was the case if you only look at the cover). It's about a nerdy guy who is plenty familiar with TCITR and is, in fact, not a fan. His life is changed when he finds his deceased father's copy of the book and by the notes his father wrote inside.

King Dork does parallel TCITR in some key ways - it's told in a first-person style, with Tom (aka King Dork, Chi-Mo, Moe, etc.) narrating; like Holden, Tom thinks that most people aren't really worth his time (he scoffs at Holden for calling them "phonies," then dubs them all "psycho normals"); Tom is dealing with the early death of his father, much like Holden is still dealing with the death of his brother Allie.

Okay, my computer is acting up. There may be more on King Dork later.

4 Books

I'm going to keep this quick and dirty because we've got a lot to get through and not a lot of time (I MUST go to bed - I was up until what Anne Shirley would call the "wee sma's" watching election results come in). So, since last we spoke, I've read four books. Without further ado...

1. Beth Revis' Across the Universe. This book is a mix of a few different genres, but it's mostly science fiction. I find the cover rather misleading - there is romance, but it takes a backseat everything else that's happening (though I suspect the relationship between Amy and Elder will play a larger role as the series goes on). I loved when this book slowed down and focused on the ideas of leaving Earth, of completely severing one's self from a specific time and place and people, of what it would be like to be trapped inside for an entire life, of the power of hope...really lovely and thought-provoking. And the moment when Amy is asked to describe Earth to some of Godspeed's residents and she shuffles through her memories looking for a place to begin, settling finally on the sky (which none of the people she's speaking to have ever seen)...it brought tears to my eyes. I hope to find time for the sequel, A Million Suns, which I got for our library today.

I am a big fan of A Series of Unfortunate Events, so I was delighted to learn, just days before its release, of this prequel series, starring a 13-year-old Lemony Snicket. It did not disappoint. Who Could That Be at This Hour? was sly and funny and suspenseful. It's filled with in-jokes for fans of ASOUE - I laughed out loud at Lemony's frustration with having words constantly defined for him, as well as his insistence that there is simply no time for moping. The book utilizes a noir-ish style beautifully - I would love to pair this book with Veronica Mars (especially the early episodes) and Marissa Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Also, the illustrations (as you can see from the cover) are awesome.

I have recently found myself frustrated with how dated all of our soccer books are (we just got yet another copy of a book about soccer superstars which still has Torres playing for Liverpool, Drogba at Chelsea, and Rafa Marquez at Barcelona). So when I saw this book, I thought it would be an awesome addition to our collection. And indeed, having read it, I'm really happy with the purchase. This is the true story of a children's soccer program made entirely of recent refugees from a smattering of war-torn countries. The stories of these boys will break your heart and their courage and good will and the way they come together, not to mention their coach's tremendous determination and perseverance will pick your heart up, put it back together, and then make it grow three sizes. Very early on, the author describes watching a kid who isn't so good make a really good block, then watching his teammates surround him like he just scored the winning goal in the World Cup. With my eyes filled with tears, I was completely sold.

This book surprised me. I was really prepared to be annoyed by it - the picture thing seemed like a gimmick and...I don't know. I judged it by it's cover. Whatever. But I'm willing to admit my mistakes, and boy, did I ever make a mistake not reading this a year ago! I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. It wasn't this twisting tale that seems like a supernatural story, then maybe a Holocaust story or a story about a father and son and then whips back to supernatural tinged with all of the above...I liked it a lot. And the pictures really were a nice addition. They probably weren't always necessary, but they really added to the atmosphere, especially (for me) the ones of the wights. They gave me the shivers, especially (for whatever reason) the one of the bus driver with the staples. Creepy. I'll be looking for the sequel.

The Twelve

Okay. I finished this a few days ago. I didn't want to write about it immediately - so often when I do that, I can't come up with anything to say. I had hoped to let my thoughts about this book marinate (while working on a few other books at the same time) - we'll see how it went.

I should start by talking about The Passage, which is the first book in this trilogy. If you haven't read The Passage, you should get on that, both because it is awesome, and also because most of what I say from here on out will make little sense without the context of that book. Let me be clear, there is very little attempt in The Twelve to bring new readers up to speed or even to remind old readers of what happened in the first book. It didn't really bother me - I've always hated the rehashing books in series do during the first chapters (and often skip them entirely) and I've read The Passage three times (I think). I know the story pretty well. (That said, there were a few things that tripped me up too - if you read The Passage when it came out and never again, getting back into Cronin's world might be kind of tough.) Anyway, like I said, I think The Passage is pretty delightful (if your idea of delightful involves zombie vampires). It's a great book for a long weekend, to be devoured in big gulps - if you stretch it out too long, you might start forgetting where everyone in the sizable cast of characters fits into the storyline that spans a century. This devouring isn't hard though - once you get into the story, it's hard to pull yourself away.

I suspect it would be best to read The Twelve this way, too. I didn't really do that because I was just so excited - I started it as soon as I got it home and read it whenever I could sneak it in. The Passage ends on a cliffhanger and I expected to pick up from there with this book, but that isn't the case. Instead, we get a brief check-in with Amy and Alicia, then are dumped back into the past to meet some strangers from the old days. I was surprised to find that Lila Kyle, ex-wife of Brad Wolgast (surrogate father to Amy) played such a large part in these early chapters (and, of course, in the later story) - in The Passage, she was little more than background, an archetypal character to explain why Wolgast was the way he was. In The Twelve, she is an entirely different kettle of fish. Seriously. A weird, weird duck, all the way (deliciously creepy in her delusions).

I won't try to summarize - with this sprawling cast and epic scope, it would take me all night. But I can say without reservations that I really dug this book. It's dark and creepy, with plenty of sequences that will leave you breathless; it also has moments that will bring you to happy tears. If you liked The Passage (and again, I cannot emphasize how much you need to read that before picking this up), you'll enjoy this.

Next up: Oh boy. So, I checked out three books right before I bought The Twelve - from the YALSA Top 10, Across the Universe and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, as well as James Dashner's Maze Runner prequel, The Kill Order (I have mixed feelings about this trilogy as a whole, but I frakking loved The Scorch Trials, so I have high hopes for this one). Obviously, they fell by the wayside when I got The Twelve. When I finished The Twelve, I started in on Across the Universe. Then I went book shopping (for the library - one of the best things about my job) and bought the new Lemony Snicket book, Who Could That Be At This Hour? It was irresistible. Across the Universe set aside, Lemony Snicket picked up. Also, today I got my reading list for the YA Lit class I'll be taking next semester; when the aforementioned books have been read (also, Outcasts United, another of my shopping purchases), expect to start hearing about those.

Whew!

Perks

Right now, I'm in the middle of reading Justin Cronin's The Twelve. I will for sure write about that when I'm done with it, but in the meantime I thought I'd talk about The Perks of Being a Wallflower, book and movie.

I saw the movie last Wednesday (with a friend who had never read the book). I was periodically distracted by Emma Watson's British-ness occasionally poking through, but beyond that, I thought the adaptation was good. The casting was pretty spectacular (really, if you put Paul Rudd and/or Mae Whitman in just about anything, I am likely to enjoy it), and Ezra Miller is a real find. That said, I think I'm just too familiar with the book to say much about the movie. I know things have to be cut for the sake of time and again, it's a good adaptation (and should be, given Stephen Chbosky's involvement). But. I don't think I could be truly satisfied with anything that isn't the book itself.

I actually re-read the book about a month ago and never wrote about it here. It's a book I've read more times than I can remember - actually, I don't remember when I first read it. Mostly, all of my other memories of this book are subsumed by the memory of reading it during my freshman year of college. It was spring break and I stayed on campus, so it was painfully lonely and snowing the whole time and so cold in my dorm room and I read the book twice (because I was apparently feeling masochistic). Also, I had just gotten a perm (not a gross tight one) and my hair still smelled like the stuff they use to make the curl last. I guess I remember that time so well because my mood was already so appropriately matched to the mood of the book and because I associate that bone-deep cold and the perm smell so strongly with that feeling and that moment in time. In fact, I got my hair permed at least once after that and it took me a couple of days to realize why the smell was depressing me so much. Anyway, that's what comes rushing back every time I read this book. And because I associate it so much with all of that, it's hard for me to say much else about this book and hard for me to have any critical and well-expressed thoughts about the movie.

The Graveyard Book

It's hard to find things to say about the good books. I mean, this won the Newbery a few years ago - do you even need a recommendation from me?

All I can really do is add my voice to the chorus, so here goes:

I just loved this book. It was a perfect blend of scary and magic and heart and melancholy (and yes, I know that list is poorly composed). I was wary at first because opening with a triple homicide seemed a little too In Cold Blood for a children's book, but really, I was sucked in before I had time to get too worked up about it. The illustrations were perfect, the characters fantastic...

My favorite part was a chapter called "The Danse Macabre." It pushed me over from really liking this book to kind of loving it - that chapter just cast a spell on me. I also loved the ending, which made me cry, and Gaiman's Newbery acceptance speech (in the back of the copy I was reading), which made me cry more.

This is pretty much incoherent, but I feel like I warned you at the get-go. I just can't talk about the really good books; at least, I can't be objective about them. I can sometimes talk about my experience of reading them, or identify quotes and passages that really gripped me, but I can't say much about them that is intelligent. And I'm comfortable with that. In fact, I'm downright happy that there are so many books in this world that leave me fumbling for words.

Burn for Burn

This is part of a trilogy or a series or something, right?

What a bizarre book! And a particularly bizarre ending - I kept waiting for the climax of the story to come...and I think I'm still waiting, with no more book left to read.

So, if you haven't read it, Burn for Burn is about three girls (the alternative girl, the cheerleader, and the formerly-fat-but-now-beautiful one) who make a revenge pact. Each has someone they want to get back at, so everyone pitches in to make the revenge fantasies come true. Like Horrible Bosses, but not as funny. Actually, it reminded me of The Craft more than anything, especially since Mary, the formerly fat girl, obviously has some latent witchy powers fueled by her angst.

Burn for Burn is certainly easy to read, but none of the characters are particularly likeable. On the other hand, none of the characters are particularly unlikeable either, which sort of hurts the vengeance aspect - the three targets don't really seem to deserve what's coming to them. One of them is pretty obviously a really nice guy and the victim of a massive misunderstanding, so watching the three protagonists make him an object of ridicule is painful. The other two targets are not necessarily nice people, but they're also not THE WORST.

And then there's that ending. Even if this is the first book in a planned trilogy (or series or whatever), this story should be somewhat self-contained. There should be a climax and a resolution, but this story doesn't seem to have either. It doesn't have a particularly compelling cliff-hanger either, and, as I've already said, I don't find the protagonists to be people I'm really rooting for. Assuming that, yes, there is a sequel, I'm not sure it's something I'll be picking up.

Every Day

Read in one sitting, in about 3 hours. I was freezing for most of that time, but I just couldn't put the book down, not even to facilitate some sort of warm-up. What a lovely, dreamy book.

Much as I was compelled to immediately say SOMETHING about this book the second I set it down (perhaps only that I had read it, that I had experienced it), I'm finding that really I don't have much at all to say. As I so often do when I race breathlessly through a really good book, I find myself struck rather dumb, still wrapped in the silence of reading and waiting for my brain to emerge from that stillness and recognize that the book is over.

I leave you with the assurance that this book is worth picking up (and the promise that that was a massive understatement).

Shadow and Bone

Sitting here in test proctoring hell seems like as good a time as any to write about Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone, which I finished a few days ago and keep forgetting to talk about. (I'm serious about that hell business - this is day 2 of 4 that I will spend locked in this windowless, airless, allergen-full computer lab watching other people take tests. Today, the new torture of heat was added, which is a joy. Seriously, this makes the 5-hour classes I will be attending tonight and tomorrow seem like things to look forward to.)

Anyway, I haven't forgotten to talk about it because it's a bad book - far from it. It was a book that I didn't want to put down. Set in a world that seems to be parallel to our own (Alina's Ravka is apparently a bizarro-world counterpart to our Russia) in a way similar to what Philip Pullman did with Lyra's world - a little more old-fashioned and filled with magic, but still fairly recognizable. Where Pullman has armored bears and Dust and daemons, Bardugo has the Grisha, a group gifted from birth with the power to master a branch of the small science. They are led by the Darkling, the most powerful of the Grisha. Alina is introduced to us as pretty much the polar opposite of the Grisha - orphaned, poor, weak, and wholly without confidence. It should be obvious to anyone who has ever read a book before that Alina will discover her heretofore untapped Grisha powers, and at a crucial moment. The book is about her coming to terms with those powers, learning to harness them, and discovering that things in Ravka are not always as they appear.

I enjoyed the world that Bardugo has created here and I look forward to the expansion of that world in the next two books of this trilogy (of course it's a trilogy, because why write a fantastic stand-alone book when you could write three or four or ten books?). I also loved the way that Bardugo explored the differences between the different classes in Ravka. Alina, having grown up poor, recognizes instantly that the wealthy put on this show of being very down to earth and in touch with the simpler life (the Grisha wear peasant-style clothing under their robes, they're encouraged to eat hearty peasant food for breakfast) when they are, of course, thoroughly out of touch with the day-to-day life of the poor.

I did have one big complaint: Bardugo relies too heavily on epiphanies. Alina doesn't make slow progress with her powers - she has an epiphany, and then she's awesome! Later on in the book, there is a similar moment that, without spoiling anything, really zapped the tension from a moment that was previously filled with it. If an author is going to put a character in a situation that seems impossible, I want the extrication process to blow me away, to be something I couldn't have come up with. I can still recommend this book whole-heartedly, but I hope in the next installment, there is a little more creative problem-solving.

Ender's Game

I've been meaning to read this book for a while. Now, having finished, I'm shocked that I hadn't years ago. Why did no one hand this to me when I was in junior high? (Speaking of handing this to kids in junior high...I gave this to a student today. I told him that I was reading it and loving it, that it was really popular - it was definitely something he'd enjoy. He took it back to class and came back immediately to return it, having been told by his teacher that they'd be reading it in class later so he wasn't allowed to read it now. Crazy. Knowing what I do now, it would kill me to put off reading a book that is so freaking fantastic.) Anyway, I'm glad to have read this now, but it's certainly a book I'd have liked to have grown up with. A book that I would have read many times, and a book that would have held new meaning for me each time I picked it up. Tonally, it reminds me of A Wrinkle in Time, a book that I did grow up with, that I did read over and over, and a book that has changed each of the many times I've read it (it only started bringing tears to my eyes a few years ago).*

I really don't have much else to say about Ender's Game. I read it breathlessly. The ending caught me off guard - it's elegiac and melancholy and it made me want to be quiet. Does that make sense? I know that a movie adaptation is in the works. I think the cast looks pretty fabulous, although they've obviously aged the characters a little - Ender is only 6 at the beginning of the book, after all. I wonder if they'll follow a similar timeline, aging the characters about 5 years over the course of the story?

Sorry. I literally finished the book and came to the computer. I want to talk about this book, but at the same time, I just want to maintain the quiet stillness that the end of the book left with.

*A Wrinkle in Time is, by the way, a book I have tried to convince a few students to read with zero success. I think I must be selling it wrong, because it's such a fantastic book. I know it won't attract as many fans as The Hunger Games, but there are a few kids that I think would love it if I could only convince them to give it a shot. What can I say to make them give it a shot?

The Girl of Fire & Thorns

So this is what I decided to go with. I've been meaning to read this since I picked it up for our library last spring, but I didn't get to it before school ended for the summer. It seemed like a good way to return to YA and happening upon this interview with author Rae Carson about the sequel (which comes out in 2 days!) on the same day I started reading The Girl of Fire and Thorns seemed like a good omen.

Anyway, I flew through the 400+ pages in 3 days (if I hadn't had to go to class yesterday, I would have finished it then, guaranteed). The book is set in what seems to be a parallel world with some connection to our own. My guess is that it takes place far in the future, following an apocalypse that brought our world to an end. A small number of people were saved from this apocalypse (by God, who seems similar but not identical to the God worshiped by Christians) and transported to this new world, where two large nations, Joya d'Arena and Invierne, are facing off for control of this world. The eponymous girl is Elisa, younger princess of one of Joya d'Arena's allies and bearer of the Godstone, a gift bestowed on one person every hundred years or so that marks them as one who will perform some great service.

The book begins with sixteen-year-old Elisa preparing for her wedding to Alejandro, king of Joya d'Arena, who has agreed to marry her in exchange for military support in the coming war with Invierne. Elisa is my favorite thing about this book, and the reason I'll probably read the sequel. I haven't seen a character like her in YA lit before. The obvious characters to compare her with are the stars of other recent post-apocalyptic stories - Tris Prior (Divergent), Lena Haloway (Delirium), and of course, Katniss Everdeen (do I even need to say this? from The Hunger Games). Character-wise, she is probably the most similar to Lena - she is timid, devout, and completely unsure of her own abilities. Appearance-wise, she is entirely unique.  Where Tris, Lena, and Katniss are all short and slight (but in good shape), Elisa is fairly tall and, when we meet her, overweight. She talks about food a lot and it's clear that those around her underestimate her (and she underestimates herself) because she's fat. She's an easy character to relate to, starting with her disappointment when she realizes that her beautiful wedding gown is beautiful because it's a few sizes too small. And because of this, I really rooted for her as she began to find her footing as a leader. The first-person narrative added to this, because it gave voice to her inner monologue - Elisa is constantly having to talk herself into being assertive, often worrying that people will see through the confidence she is projecting to the fear that lies just underneath.

My hope for the sequel is that Elisa remains as likable as she is in the first book and that Carson indulges in a little more world-building. I was happy that the focus in the first book was more on character-building, but I would love to know more about Invierne and the Perditos, as well as previous bearers of the Godstone. Elisa mentions more than once her suspicion that some previous bearers came from Invierne and I have to assume that she's right (and that Carson was setting up a look back at the history of Elisa's world and possibly even an explanation of what really brought Elisa's people to this world).

And so we come to the end...

I told you I would finish it soon.

I'm done with David Copperfield. To be honest, I don't have much more to say about it - the last post in particular really captured my overall feelings about this book. It grew on me, and the characters crawled into my heart without my realizing it, leaving me stunned each time by how much their triumphs and trials affected me. I was again taken aback by the depth of feeling I had for Mrs. Steerforth in her anguish - she was never a very likable character, but the scene when David brings her his sad news just killed me.

David Copperfield was, to me, a very human book. And David himself epitomizes that. He is flawed, but generally good, and trying to be good. I identified with so many of his contradictory (and thus, particularly real) emotions...I'm not explaining this well. Here's an example:

They expected me home before Christmas; but had no idea of my returning so soon. I had purposely misled them, that I might have the pleasure of taking them by surprise. And yet, I was perverse enough to feel a chill and disappointment in receiving no welcome, and rattling, alone and silent, through the misty streets.

I just know (and assume others must as well) know those kinds of contradictory feelings so well, and I've rarely seen them expressed so clearly. That's all.

So it's over. From here, we go...where? Back to YA lit, perhaps. Tomorrow will be a day for browsing (during those rare moments when the library is quiet). Tonight, though, will be a time for enjoying that glow of knowing that I finished a really big book and, more importantly, that I found a book I could really connect to.

 

Why We're Here

THIS is why this blog exists.  I was reading David Copperfield (I am approaching the final 100 pages, so the end is in sight, I promise) and I came across two things that I desperately wanted to share with someone.  So here I shall share them.

To put this in context for anyone familiar with the book but without (I hope) giving too much away, let me say that I am at the point in the book where seemingly everyone has decided to ship out to Australia.  It seems like an odd turn of events, but if they do all go (and I assume they will), that fictional Australia of the past was lucky to receive such a motley but worthy cast of characters.  Anyway, I wanted to first share a passage that unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes:

And Mrs. Gummidge took his hand, and kissed it with a homely pathos and affection, in a homely rapture of devotion and gratitude, that he well deserved.

We brought the locker out, extinguished the candle, fastened the door on the outside, and left the old boat close shut up, a dark speck in the cloudy night.  Next day, when we were returning to London outside the coach, Mrs. Gummidge and her basket were on the seat behind, and Mrs. Gummidge was happy.

I think if you haven't read the book, you'll read that and wonder how it could possibly make anyone cry.  I don't know how well I can explain it, either, except to say that this brought home to me what a masterful job Dickens had done up to this point of building these characters and making them familiar, not to mention creating such a distinct sense of place (and leaving me with a deep affection for it).  As such, these two brief paragraphs hit a perfectly bittersweet note.

The second thing is this: Wilkins Micawber IS Billy Riggins from Friday Night Lights (watch it, if you haven't).  Or vice versa.  (For what it's worth, Mindy Riggins shares quite a lot with Emma Micawber as well.)  It hit me like a freight train in the chapter that followed the above passage.  The always-delightful Betsey Trotwood said it best: "Bless and save the man!  He'd write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!"  The verbose, ridiculous speeches, the way he puffs himself up, his utter inability to make good decisions, and his unending devotion to his family are absolutely indistinguishable from Billy, and they are both undeniably lovable because of those shared traits.  If ever DC is adapted into a television show (and I know I said it could be a YA novel, but I'm starting to think the enormous cast of characters and indelible sense of place would lend themselves to Jason Katims' style), Derek Phillips would be an impeccable Wilkins Micawber.

 

 

I am a terrible blogger

I really am (a terrible blogger).  I start blogs and abandon them on a fairly regular basis, and I really didn't want that to happen with this one.  (That statement sounds like the beginning of me breaking up with this blog, but it isn't - it's actually the beginning of me trying to repair my relationship with this blog...and we're going to put THAT metaphor to an end right now.)  So.  Sometimes life gets in the way of things like blogging, and that will be my excuse.

It really has been kind of a busy month (or so) for me - I've really only spent one weekend in my apartment since sometime in July (note: I'm not complaining about this, since a couple of those weekends were spent on the shores of various Minnesota lakes, and I could not be happier about that), I spent two weeks working out of town, I'm moving in four days and am not at all prepared, and so on.  So really, I was distracted from both blogging and reading, and since this is a blog about what I'm reading...well, you can see the problem.

Enough about not books.  Though I haven't done much reading, I have done some.  I'm STILL working through David Copperfield, and I have to say, it's growing on me (this should be read in a "pleasantly surprised" tone).  I compared it a while back to a young adult novel - the more I read of it, the more I believe it really is a prototypical YA novel.  Update the language and break it into a series, and you've got yourself a book that the kids would love (irresistible bad boy Steerforth, girl-next-door Agnes, scheming nerd Uriah Heep - these character types are straight out of just about any YA relationship drama).

It really is just a likable book, with a likable protagonist.  I was delighted with David's reaction to learning that Betsey Trotwood (herself a fabulous character) had lost all of her money - the secret thrill he got from going without and putting in long hours is so strangely easy to relate to.  Of course, financial struggle isn't fun, but I was reminded of how I felt when our street flooded one summer and I had to stay up all night to help keep an eye on sump pumps and make sure no drains were backing up - I was tired and wet and what-not, but I also kind of enjoyed those temporary privations (I would have enjoyed them less had they continued beyond that night - fortunately, they didn't).

This has been kind of all over the place.  That's what comes of going a month without blogging, I suppose.  I will try to be better.  And I really am going to try to get through David Copperfield - in a week, I'll be back at work and aching to get my hands on the new YA lit that will have appeared on our shelves like magic over the summer.  If you've stumbled on this page and made it all the through my stream-of-consciousness rambling, I wish you a happy last week of summer.

Bachelorette Party Reading

A brief pause to announce that, as I have finished with Anne (to be clear, I read through Anne of Ingleside), I am returning to David.  And what a thing to return to - Little Em'ly has disappeared...and with Steerforth!  The drama!

Today I'm leaving town for a bachelorette party weekend, and while David will be accompanying me, I find myself questioning the wisdom of bringing him.  It is exactly what I want to be reading, so it's what I will bring, but I find myself already preparing for what seem like inevitable questions about why that particular book.  Whatever.  As I said, it is the thing I want to be reading, so it is the thing I will read.

Looking to the future: in less than a month, I'll be moving.  Which means all of my books (and there are quite a few) will need to be moved as well.  I found this article especially relatable.  I'm also thinking as I pack up my books (or, now that I've run out of boxes, prepare to pack them by grouping them by size) that I would like to do some future posts about my collection, like the YA books I've chosen to buy, or all of the books I have by a certain author...we'll see.

Anyway, I said I'd be brief (for me, this is brief).  And now, it's back to packing.

Long Books

Dear blog,
I've been ignoring you.  I apologize.  But I haven't been ignoring my reading (really), so I feel like we can pick up about where we left off.  This summer has, for all of my unemployed-ness, been uncharacteristically busy.  Most recently, I went home for my ten-year high school reunion, a fact which has little to do with reading and this blog, but it was so unexpectedly fun that I wanted to mention it (and to throw out a theory that Facebook and other social media make things like reunions way less stressful, given that any high school friend you are Facebook friends with already knows what you look like now and what you've been up to lately).

But really, we're here to talk about books.  I did make it to the midpoint of David Copperfield and have been taking a little break to breeze through Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, and Anne of Ingleside.  They are a different kind of charming than the earlier books and filled with more adult scrapes and triumphs and heartbreaks and amusements.  Still, I find them delightful and I continue to bask in their old-fashioned charm (and marvel at the descriptions of housekeeping and entertaining that are sprinkled throughout).

I think what I wanted to talk about in this post (and alluded to somewhere in the morass of the previous one) was being one of those people who read long books.  Classic books.  I've always been a little uncomfortable with dragging out these tomes in public, not wanting people to think I'm showing off.  I also prefer to avoid the questions and comments that arise when I get over myself and read what I want, when and where I want.  I hate being asked if I'm reading things for class (especially by people who know what classes I'm taking and must know that, though I wish I could read Joseph Campbell for one of my classes nowadays, it isn't going to happen).  I hate when people tell me I'm brave for reading long books.  No.  This is not bravery.  Nor is it masochism.  They are the books I want to be reading, and why would one assume anything different.

I certainly don't want this to come off bitter and rant-y (though I suspect we're approaching that territory).  What I want to convey is a certain sadness that a love of reading, especially a love of reading books that have been widely acknowledged to be great, is considered suspect by so many.  I would so like people to understand that I have come to love these "great books," and to believe that there is something in there for them as well, something they could connect with and immerse themselves in.

YA Literature

I had been planning to put off posting again until I reached the midpoint of David Copperfield.  An arbitrary decision, I suppose, but I have been ruminating on some things I wanted to say about reading the kind of books that I tend to read (and I am still mulling those thoughts over and will do my best to express them articulately when I get to that midpoint, which should be in the next day or so); also, that is the point where I plan to pause and take a little break with Anne of Windy Poplars.

You might be asking yourself (if you were able to muddle through those convolutions) why I'm posting this now, and that would be a good question.  To catch you up to where I am in the book, David/Trotwood Copperfield has finished school and is learning to be a proctor (now if he would just explain to me what precisely that means).  He is living on his own and, though he spends most of his evenings alone and lonely, he has had a few notable guests - Steerforth and company, and Uriah Heep.*  I've been struck by how timeless David's experiences are at this time in his life.


A couple of examples:

• When Steerforth and his friends dine with David Copperfield, they all (David especially) get absolutely wasted and David makes an utter fool of himself.  (Also, his description of being drunk, in which he keeps saying that somebody did this ridiculous thing, then comes to realize that it was himself, is brilliant.)
• This: "I could settle down into a state of equable low spirits, and resign myself to coffee; which I seem, on looking back, to have taken by the gallon at about this period of my existence."

Seriously.  I read a lot of YA literature over the last year (and will be reading a lot more in the year to come) and if you updated the rhetoric of these passages ever so slightly, you could drop them into just about any book that deals with coming of age.  

Where am I going with all this?  I have to make a little digression to explain.  Earlier this year, a student asked me for a book that was similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower (a request which thrilled me, because I adore that book).  I gave him The Catcher in the Rye.  A rather obvious choice, but for good reasons (first-person narrative, coming of age story, deals with depression and loneliness, and so on).  A few weeks later, the teacher who had introduced him to Perks (they read it out loud in class, which is AWESOME) mentioned to me that he wasn't really getting into Salinger and she thought it was probably too dated for kids to connect with these days.  I didn't argue, but I also really vehemently disagreed.  The more books I read about that time of life (lumped together lately as Young Adult literature), the more I realize how little has changed.  Yes, Holden Caulfield didn't have computers and cell phones (though really, Perks doesn't have all those super-contemporary trappings either), but he has the same problems.  And so, for that matter, does David Copperfield.  When we suggest that kids can't connect with characters created 50 years ago or 150 years ago, I think we're doing them a disservice.  When they're confined to the YA lit of the last 5 or 10 years (and don't get me wrong, I think a lot of that stuff is incredible), they miss out on all of the profound things said about young adulthood by the authors of previous generations.  And really, young adulthood never changes that much - David Copperfield's attempts to discover who he is and where he's headed are, yes, more wordy than Holden's or the narrator of Perks, but the differences are superficial.  The core is the same.  

*I understand David Copperfield's dislike of 'umble Uriah, though he hasn't really done anything particularly evil (yet, I suppose, since the back cover describes Uriah as the "most unforgettable villain in all literature").  I think this is primarily because he reminds me of Steerpike, from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast books.  I'm hardly the first person to make this comparison - Peake's books are quite Dickensian (a conclusion I'm reaching in reverse, since I read them last summer and am really just now familiarizing myself with Dickens) and I wouldn't be shocked to learn that Steerpike's very appearance was based on Uriah's (the red eyes, the angular frame).  Anyway, I think that Steerpike is a particularly unforgettable villain (one of the most fascinatingly horrible characters I've ever encountered, really), and I can't recommend Gormenghast highly enough.  It was recommended to me largely because of the fabulous, verbose prose (Peake had such a command of English vocabulary and the sheer multitude and variety of words made my head spin), and I loved it for that and also for the weird, marvelous, and often creepy characters and the way Peake could make a slow, silent chase through vast tunnels and hallways in the early dawn utterly thrilling (I mean it - I don't know if I breathed while Titus and Flay followed Steerpike; if I did, I'm certain it was quiet and shallow, for fear that Steerpike would hear any noise that I made).

I was right.  I just needed to give Mr. Dickens another chance, to bring older and (hopefully) wiser eyes to his words.  In other words, I'm really digging David Copperfield.  It's rather slower going than, say, Anne of Green Gables, and decidedly longer, but I feel like I've set a good pace.  More importantly, I'm becoming more and more engrossed by the story.  I think David himself is quite charming and I adore Peggoty.  Mr. Barkis makes me laugh out loud.  The Murdstones are properly horrifying step-relations and the thought of Mr. Creakle's whisper makes me shiver when I think about it.  And I know this only scratches the surface when it comes to the characters that David will meet in his travels - just now, he's been packed off with Mr. Quinion to London.

I also love that David is a reader, and that he takes solace in his books during hard times.  I adore books about readers, and I've had the pleasure just this summer of spending time with David, Anne Shirley, Catherine Morland, and Roland Michell - their love of reading, described so eloquently by their creators, makes me feel a deep connection with each of them, separated though we may be by years and continents and, of course, the fact that they are fictional and I, last I checked, am not.  So, though reading may often be a lonely business (and that loneliness be the inspiration for this particular blog), I find myself slightly less lonely when I am reading with these characters.

By my count, it has been three days since last I posted.  It feels like longer.  I finished Anne of Avonlea, rushed through Anne of the Island, and decided to take a little hiatus from Lucy Maud for something I suspect Anne herself would approve of - David Copperfield (the Dickens, not the magician).

Why that particular tome, you ask?  I suppose Anne did play some part in the decision: in AotI, she reads The Pickwick Papers; there's something so right about chasing a book about a reader with a book that they were reading (and I don't own Pickwick, so it was this or Nicholas Nickleby or A Tale of Two Cities).  On top of which, I am watching Lost, a show that does not shy away from literary allusions, and Desmond David Hume is a great fan of Mr. Dickens (again, I didn't have immediate access to Our Mutual Friend).  Anyway, Dickens seemed the way to go.  

My past relationship with the oeuvre of Charles Dickens is limited to A Christmas Carol (which I have read probably once and seen in various iterations more times than I can remember) and Great Expectations.  The latter I read when I was in high school and had only recently begun to work through a list of recommended classics (a list of about 80 books that I did ultimately complete, sometime in college or shortly after).  I don't remember feeling strongly one way or the other about it, though I suspect my perspectives have changed somewhat, hopefully enough to make DC a thoroughly enjoyable experience (I experienced similar shifts in opinion about Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf).  It's a long book, so I expect to have plenty of time to reflect on how I feel about it, but I take heart in Anne's and Desmond's love for Dickens, as well as the knowledge that, of his many works, DC was the favorite of Dickens himself.  

Happy Independence Day!

I've been neglecting my self-imposed blogging duties.  I finished Freakonomics a few days ago (on Saturday, June 30, to be precise) and haven't managed to get myself here to say anything else about it since. In my defense, I came home for the weekend to do family things and there really hasn't been much down time (all this relaxing is just exhausting!), plus I feel like most of what I wanted to say about the book was summed up in my previous post.  Still, the fact that I didn't post has been nagging at me, so here I am. 

I did want to say that, despite the tone and tenor of the previous post, I did wind up mostly enjoying Freakonomics.  It is certainly interesting, and I generally like seeing things that I wouldn't normally consider quantifiable broken down into clear and uncompromising numbers.

Now, before I rush off for more family things, let me add that I'm halfway through Anne of Avonlea.  More on this later.

Freakonomics

Freakonomics it is.

I started it the same day I finished Northanger Abbey.  My first impression was that the authors seemed rather chuffed with themselves.  In hindsight, I suppose that was warranted, but it isn't very appealing (and a few chapters in, that impression lingers).  I do think it's an interesting book, although I suspect that it would have elicited a few more moments of shock and awe if I had read it when it first came out; at this point, most of the big revelations have become, if not common knowledge, at least more common than they were 7 years ago.

A couple of other observations:

1. The editing isn't stellar.  It's not terrible, but I'm noticing and remembering a few mistakes along the way.
2. There are end notes.  Personally, I prefer footnotes.  I like to have supplementary information or citation information right there, because if it's at the end, I either don't know that I should be looking for it, or I'm constantly flipping the pages back and forth, which makes me kind of nuts.  Again, this is a personal preference, but it's really bugging me.
3. I'm not a huge fan of the way the book is structured.  Specifically, there are some revelations in the introduction or early chapters (the things that come to mind are the correlation between plummeting crime rates and Roe v. Wade and the way that real estate agents sell other people's homes vs. how they sell their own) that they then try to use as cliff-hangers or big revelations later on...it just doesn't work.  At the end of the chapter about crack dealers (probably the most interesting chapter thus far), they talk about how even though a lot of analysts thought violent crime would continue to rise at a furious rate, all of a sudden it dropped off.  They treat it like a cliff-hanger, but if you, like me, tend to read books from beginning to end, you already know why.  They talked about it in the introduction!  

Anyway, I feel like I'm being really negative about this book.  I don't mean to be.  But the most lasting impressions I'm getting from this book are those listed above.

Admittedly, I just finished the chapter about crack dealers and I walked over to the computer and immediately began writing this - there's a good chance my frustration will fade quickly.  But that was always the point of this blog - when you're reading, there are things you are excited about or frustrated with or just generally overbrimming with opinions on, and you want to share those thoughts right in the moment, right when you're thinking them, because if you don't (if you're me, at least), you lose them.  And in a perfect world, you want to share them with someone else who just finished that part in the book too (or, in lieu of a perfect world, I guess you share them with your blog and hope that someone else will stumble upon that particular thought when they particularly need it).

And with no fanfare, I arrive at the end

I went to all the trouble of explaining why I was having so much trouble getting through Northanger Abbey, just yesterday, and then I went and finished it today!

So what can I say about it?  First, I was way off about the General.  The thing is, he was so solicitous, and Eleanor was talking about a mother being such a dear friend...I just completely misread everything.  And what the General turned out to actually be like!  Well!

It isn't my favorite Austen (it's cliche, but I just love Pride and Prejudice - none of her other books come close in my estimation), but it isn't my least favorite either (that dubious honor going to Mansfield Park or Emma, I can't say which for certain).  Catherine Morland is frustratingly naive but still quite endearing.  And the younger Tilneys are lovely.  Austen paints these characters with a rather broad brush - Isabella is a contriving coquette, her brother a boorish buffoon, and Mrs. Allen is pure comic relief (and she really is funny - I laughed out loud when she kept repeating that she really had no use for General Tilney).  But I guess this makes sense in the context of Austen taking about heroines and what should befall them.

What book should be next?  I nicked Freakonomics the last time I visited my parents, and I am in a pattern of switching back and forth between fiction and nonfiction, so perhaps that's the way I'll go.  Stay tuned.

An Interlude

I'm still reading Northanger Abbey and Anne of Green Gables.  The breakneck pace which took me through The Colossus of Maroussi earlier in the month (not to mention A.S. Byatt's Possession and William J. Broad's The Science of Yoga) has slowed a little, a result of nicer weather (which leads to longer bike rides), the 2012 European Championships (during which I dare not read, for fear of missing something like Zlatan Ibrahimovic's goal against France), homework (which I've been putting off, but can't any longer), and the whole reading on the iPad thing - I feel like I shouldn't privilege Anne over Catherine because I prefer paper, and so I wind up just not reading sometimes.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying Northanger, though I'm a bit concerned about the interest General Tilney has taken in Catherine.  It's kind of creepy (utterly unlike Colonel Brandon and Marianne, maybe because Brandon was a bachelor, where Gen. Tilney has children older than Catherine - don't tell me, but I hope all this worry comes to nothing).

But mostly, I just wanted to share this tidbit from Anne:

"It's such a responsibility having a minister's family to tea.  I never went through such an experience before.  It's a sight to behold.  We're going to have jellied chicken and cold tongue.  We're to have two kinds of jelly, red and yellow, and whipped cream and lemon pie, and cherry pie, and three kinds of cookies, and fruitcake, and Marilla's famous yellow plum preserves that she keeps especially for ministers, and pound cake and layer cake, and biscuits as aforesaid; and new bread and old both..."

For tea!

A second book...

I'm not here to announce the completion of Northanger Abbey, but, as you may have guessed, the commencement of a second book.  I'm not abandoning Catherine Morland, by any means.  As a matter of fact, I like her quite a lot (certainly more than Fanny Price, who infuriated me to no end).  And I'm always pleasantly surprised by Austen's wry tone and acerbic wit.  But as I mentioned previously, Northanger Abbey is on the iPad.  While I'm adjusting to using the iPad as a reader (though I remain staunchly in the actual book camp), there are some times when it simply will not do - to wit, in the bathtub (where I dearly love to ensconce myself with a good book) or in the pack on the back of my bike (because I firmly believe that a book is a necessary accompaniment to any occasion, including a bike ride).  A borrowed iPad especially has no place near water or bumping along a bike trail.  Thus...

Not my copy.  But a very close
approximation of the shape mine
is in.

Anne of Green Gables.  The literary equivalent (for me, at least) of a warm bath, comfort food, or a broken-in pair of jeans (or all of the above).  I read this the other day -- Fire Up Your Tivos, Nerds: Anne of Green Gables is Returning to TV -- and this nagging urge to revisit the books for the umpteenth time has been dogging me ever since (as has a desire to revisit the Megan Follows movies, which I'm proud to own).  Thus, confronted with a lazy, rainy day and the desire to take a nice, long bath, I fished out my well-worn (well-loved) copy of Anne of Green Gables and happily returned to Avonlea.

I doubt there is much I can say about Anne that hasn't already been said.  (Of course, the same could be said for most books, yet here we are.)  Since I've only just begun, let me try to explain why I'm always sucked back in so quickly, why I'm always certain that rereading these books was a good decision.  First, there are the characters.  Perhaps it's a bad idea for what is ostensibly a children's book to start by focusing on three characters, Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who are in their 60s.  But the quick sketches that are given of them in the opening chapter are so deft that they come immediately to life (it doesn't hurt, of course, to have Colleen Dewhurst, Richard Farnsworth, and Patricia Hamilton in mind while you read, either).

For instance, this:
"She looked like a woman of narrow experience and rigid conscience, which she was; but there was a saving something about her mouth which, if it had been ever so slightly developed, might have been considered indicative of a sense of humor."

Also, I can't help being delighted by a world in which you know expected company is nothing special because "the dishes were every-day dishes and there was only crab apple preserves and one kind of cake."  Only one kind of cake - heaven forbid!

Also, though I would probably find a particularly precocious and talkative eleven-year old exhausting in person, I think Anne is just delightful and I love her world-view.

"Isn't it splendid there are so many things to like in this world?"

Indeed.  And this series, my dear, is one of those things in this world that I like immensely.

Where to now?

In my rush to post something (anything) before hitting the hay last night, I completely forgot to say where I was going next in my reading.

(Pause for dramatic effect)

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen!

Why?  Two major reasons.  First, and less embarrassing, I have a loaner iPad for the summer and I could download Northanger Abbey for free and I feel like I should be using the iPad as much as possible.  (My initial impressions, four chapters in, are that I'd much prefer to be reading this in real book form.)  The second, arguably more embarrassing reason requires a new paragraph.

I've read 5 of Austen's other novels: Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park.  I have also read Karen Joy Fowler's The Jane Austen Book Club (probably after reading Sense and Sensibility, before Persuasion and Mansfield Park).  In TJABC, they read the aforementioned five, plus Northanger Abbey and sometime in my reading of TJABC, I got it into my head that I should read all six of the Austen books that they did.  So I've been working on them, and this is my last one.  Much as I hate to admit it, I kind of enjoyed TJABC.  I also (this is probably worse) have seen the movie, more than once.  It's one of those movies that goes really well with a lazy Sunday morning.  It's also got a pretty stellar cast (though I'll never be able to see Maggie Grace as anyone but Shannon from Lost).  So...a mazy run to get to Northanger Abbey, and kudos to you if you can follow my twisted logic, but that's where I'm headed next (actually, that's where I currently am - as I mentioned, I'm four chapters in thus far).

Starting all over again...

Up front, this is for a class.  That said, I keep trying to maintain a blog but haven't had much luck with that since college.  Here we go again.

That little bit of business out of the way, it hit me this evening as I came to the magnificent end of Henry Miller's The Colossus of Maroussi, that reading was indeed a lonely business.  Books like this beg to be discussed, to be gushed over...and in the moment, not at a book club a week down the road or in a class, but immediately after you read the final account of Katsimbalis crowing into the Athenian darkness and being answered by invisible roosters (incredible!).

Anyway, lacking that simpatico individual who is not only reading the books I am reading, but reading them at the same pace, I turn to this blog.  I'll attempt to say intelligent things about the books I'm reading when I can, but more than that I will just try to say something about them.  During the school year, I'll probably focus on young adult novels because I work in a junior high library and I always feel like a fraud recommending books I don't really know anything about (also, YA books are pretty amazing).  This summer, I'll be sticking to the grown-up books, probably going back and forth between fiction and non-fiction.

To get off to a rather pathetic start, let me just sing the vague but full-throated praises of The Colossus of Maroussi.  It was recommended to me by one of the professors I toured Greece and Crete with, a fellow philhellene, and it pulled me back there forcefully.  Of course, Miller visited about 65 years before I did, but there is something eternal about the way he captures those places (he would say, and I'd probably agree, that it is the places themselves that are eternal).  If you've had the good fortune to spend some time wandering the streets of Athens or exploring the ruins of Knossos, you should read this book.  If you haven't, you should still read it.  He captures the joy of finding kindred spirits in foreign places, of finding yourself surprised by your travels, and maybe most significantly, of hearing a well-told story.