Books
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The Time Traveler’s Wife
I read the novel version of The Time Traveler’s Wife a few years ago, and I loved it. It was really well done. This weekend, we finally got around to going to see the film version, and I loved it too, just not quite as much. I think that happens most of the time with books that are turned into films. So much of the story has to be left out when you change the medium, it’s rare to find a film version that really works. And I would say, this one did. The premise of the story is that Henry has a genetic disorder that causes him to travel…
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Dear Sidney, How comforting it was to hear you say, “God damn, oh God damn.” That’s the only honest thing to say, isn’t it? Elizabeth’s death is an abomination and it will never be anything else. This short paragraph struck my heart, because it’s almost what my dad said when I told him that my mom had died. Everyone else was mostly sad for me, worried for me, and said kind things like, “I’m so sorry”, or “Oh, no”, or whatever wonderful and caring things they said. But my dad, he and my mom were part of their own group in High School, their own society that railed against the…
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Julie & Julia
Julie and Julia (link is to my review from a few years ago), the book, is a memoir written by New Yorker Julie Powell, who in 2002 found herself coming up on the big 3-0 in the midst of serious career angst. Her aspirations of becoming a writer were not panning out for her, and she found herself in that horrible quadrant of the work spectrum that I like to call, bored and stressed. She had an emotionally stressful job (talking to people about the memorial for the victims of September 11th…many of the people who called had lost loved ones that day) that was at the same time the…
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Reading Kim
Or, more accurately, not reading Kim. Even more accurately, reading everything else except Kim. I’ve been trying to get into Rudyard Kipling’s adventure story, Kim, for awhile now. As seems to happen when I read 19th century literature, I’m having a bit of trouble getting going. The pacing and language are over 100 years old, and British to boot, so it’s not as accessible as most modern literature. Which is part of the allure…to look back at another time and place, to sort of get into the head of the author, get into the pacing of the time, all of that. But still. I’m at that early part in the…
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Fortunate Son
Fortunate Son is Walter Mosley’s parable of color and class in America, exemplified by two boys, one black, one white, who live together for a few years as children, and consider themselves to be brothers. Tommy is the black brother, who was born with a hole in his lung, which curses his health and strength his entire life. He spends his first 6 months of life in the hospital, visited every day by his devoted single mother, who comes to see him as soon as she gets off of work. Eric is the same age as Tommy, and is born in the same hospital. He is described over and over…
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The Solace of Leaving Early
Langston Braverman walked out on her PhD oral exams, and came home to small town Indiana to recover from that which ails her. She is so wrapped up in her own pain that she has no energy left to pay attention to what is going on around her, and there’s a lot going on. Her childhood friend Alice has died, leaving two young children behind, and Langston is so self-absorbed that she isn’t even the least bit interested in how her friend died, doesn’t want to attend the funeral, just wants to hide in her parents’ attic and try to figure out what to do with her life. While Langston’s…
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Out Stealing Horses
In the meantime, I am spending my days getting this place in order. There is quite a lot that needs doing. I did not pay much for it. In fact, I had been prepared to shell out a lot more to lay my hands on the house and the grounds, but there was not much competition. I do understand why now, but it doesn’t matter. I am pleased anyway. I try to do most of the work myself, even though I could have paid a carpenter, I am far from skint, but then it would have gone too fast. I want to use the time it takes. Time is important…
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The Hearts of Horses
Horse books for kids and young adults are fairly common. I was a huge horse book fan as a kid, some of my favorites being Black Beauty, The Black Stallion series, and Smoky the Cow Horse. I had dreams of becoming a kind, caring, gentle horsewoman, and of having that wonderful bond with my horse that is described in these books. The reality is, though, that horses are a lot of money, and a lot of work, and if you’re not going to spend a lot of time with them, you’re better off not having one. So at least thus far in my life, no horse. When I came…
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Small Island
“But for me I had just one question – let me ask the Mother Country just one simple question: how come England did not know me?” This is the question asked by the baffled Gilbert, one of the protagonists of Small Island, Andrea Levy’s award winning tale of the first wave of Jamaicans to come to England after World War II. Gilbert is confused, because while any young student in Jamaica can recite the canals of England, the roadways, the ports, the railways, the docks, while they memorize the Parliaments and the laws that were debated there, while they take great pride in their mother country, the English that they…
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Stardust ~ Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess
(image found on Charles Vess’ site, here) Dewey from The Hidden Side of a Leaf was a huge Neil Gaiman fan, so when deciding which books to read for the Dewey’s Books Reading Challenge, I wanted to include at least one Gaiman book. I decided to read Stardust, and while I was at the library the other day picking up another book, I happened to see the version that was illustrated by Charles Vess. I didn’t even know there was such a version, but it looked like it might be fun, so I picked it up. Boy, I’m glad I did. The pictures are so beautiful, and really add to…
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The Fifth Child
Happiness. A happy family. The Lovatts were a happy family. It was what they had chosen and what they deserved. Often, when David and Harriet lay face to face, it seemed that doors in their breasts flew open, and what poured out was an intensity of relief, of thankfulness, that still astonished them both: patience for what seemed now such a very long time had not been easy, after all. It had been hard preserving their belief in themselves when the spirit of the times, the greedy and selfish sixties, had been so ready to condemn them, to isolate, to diminish their best selves. And look, they had been right…
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We Are On Our Own
(Graphic found here) We Are On Our Own is Miriam Katin’s memoir of her survival during World War II. Told in graphic novel format, it is the story of Miriam and her mom, who are running from the Nazis in occupied Hungary. Miriam’s father is away at war when the orders come for her and her mother to list all of their belongings, and report for deportation. Rather than risk what the end of that trail might hold for them, Miriam’s mother purchases fake documents that identify her as a poor servant with an illegitimate child, and they travel into the countryside to hopefully wait out the war on a…
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
“I shall spare you Brother Juniper’s generalizations. They are always with us. He thought he saw in the same accident the wicked visited by destruction and the good called early to Heaven. He thought he saw pride and wealth confounded as an object lesson to the world, and he thought he saw humility crowned and rewarded for the edification of the city. But Brother Juniper was not satisfied with his reasons. It was just possible that the Marquesa de Montemayor was not a monster of avarice, and Uncle Pio of self-indulgence.” An historic rope bridge collapses in Lima, Peru, in 1714, dashing 5 people to their death in the gulf…
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The Graveyard Book
Nobody “Bod” Owens is the protagonist of Neil Gaiman’s newest story, The Graveyard Book. The book starts with the murder of Bod’s family, and his unknowing escape as an 18-month old toddler. Bod climbs out of his crib and down the stairs, and, finding the front door open, takes the opportunity to explore, unaware that his parents and sister are being ruthlessly stabbed inside. He ends up at a nearby graveyard, where he is taken in by the dead (and undead) residents. His story is told in a series of episodes, some seeming more like short stories than part of a larger tale. He grows from a toddler to a…
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When Parents Die
My friend Cindy, whose mother died about 5 years ago, met me for lunch a week or two ago, and she loaned me this book, When Parents Die ~ A Guide for Adults, by Edward Myers. The book is specifically written for adult children who lose their parents, whether it be a long, slow decline, a shocking sudden death, or anything in between. I’ve read a few books about death, dying, and grief since I lost my mom last June, and this is the one that has thus far proved the most comforting. I’m not sure if that’s because more time has passed, so I’m more easily comforted, or if…
