Author John Krakauer first reported about the death of Christopher Johnson McCandleless in an article he wrote for the outdoorsman magazine Outside in 1993. In 1996, he published the book Into the Wild with a more complete picture of McCandleless's travels from 1990 through his death in 1992. Chris McCandleless was a college graduate who took to the road after his graduation from Emory University in search of a lifestyle in which he could live off the land, in the fashion of Thoreau or Tolstoy. To cut ties with his affluent upbringing, he even went so far as to change his name that he gave to others to "Alexander Supertramp."
From the very beginning, you know McCandleless died on his adventure. There are lots of interviews with folks he met along the way---from a guy who gave him a job in his granary to a "rubber tramp" couple (slang for homeless people who own a car) to an elderly man who wanted to adopt him as his grandson. Amazingly, he did manage to live off the land in Alaska several months before he succumbed to starvation that experts theorize was brought on by ingesting seeds infested with a poisonous mold. In the book, McCandleless comes across as a nice guy with grandiose ideals that unfortunately do not include a lot of planning and preparation behind them. The author, as an avid outdoorsman and mountain climber himself, is clearly sympathetic to McCandleless and relates to his quest.
In the end, I just felt bad for all the people he unceremoniously left behind. While his parents were clearly imperfect and didn't share Chris's same life philosophy, I couldn't help feeling that he was so unkind and ungrateful for how hard his parents had worked to provide for him over the years. It was claimed over and over again in the book about how much he loved his sister Carine, but he didn't even stoop to contact her during his time on the road. Maybe I would have felt different reading this book if I hadn't been a parent. Everyone likes a bit of adventure, right? I just felt, even with the author's bend in McCandleless's favor in telling his story, that he came off as self absorbed, arrogant, and uncaring towards his family in the book. It was especially hard to see how everyone he met adored him, while he treated those he grew up with with contempt. I would be absolutely heartbroken permanently if my child grew up to behave that way towards me.
And yet, McCandleless is viewed as a sort of modern day hero by some because he followed his dream of living off the land. Because he died on his trip, he's now immortalized and people make pilgrimages to the bus he died in. Sean Penn directed a movie based on this book. Somehow that just seems wrong to me. Should we exalt people who follow their dreams regardless of the outcome? I don't think so.
Cami Walker is a woman who lived a fast paced life. She was a young, high powered advertising executive who worked long hours and pushed herself to the limit professionally. She got married to her husband Mark and went on her honeymoon. Everything was perfect...until it wasn't. Upon the return from her honeymoon, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her health declined to the point she could barely get out of bed. Walker, a former addict, got hooked on prescription pills again. Her marriage was at its breaking point. When she was at rock bottom, she got an unconventional prescription from her neighbor Mbali---stop focusing on yourself and give. Give everyday for 29 days.
29 Gifts is a memoir of Walker's effort to give everyday for 29 days after years of focusing on the decline of her health. The book is written diary style and tells about each day and what she gave. She gives a plant, treats a friend to a massage, gives extra money in the offering plate at church, gives a homeless person a meal and some money, does some pro bono advertising work for clients, and more.
The concept of giving to release you from focusing on yourself is not unique. Lots of books advise giving. Pay It Forward immediately comes to mind. What makes this book different is the narrator and the concept of giving everyday for 29 days and to start over at the beginning if you miss a day. Cami Walker struggles. She struggles more than the average person. She's looking for a way to stop writing about only her health and addiction issues and write about more positive subjects. She's so focused on Mbali's 29 day prescription that she founds a website for others to share their 29 Gifts stories (you can check it out here if you like). My first thought was did she do this to make some money off this concept? I know --- so cynical. But so what if she did? Giving and encouraging others to do so can only do good in our broken world. In the end, I found Cami's personal 29 day journey to be inspiring. Reading about her struggles with MS made me more grateful for my good health and the opportunities that affords me. I can walk around the block without a cane. I'm not in constant pain. I'm strong enough to wash my family's dishes. What can I give today?
I'm on a bit of a circus binge lately. My friend Sock Monkey Mommy read The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb and recommended it so I decided to take the plunge. And oh...I really liked it. First of all, the cover art is just amazing, right? It is just so evocative of the novel. The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb is historical fiction that is a memoir from the perspective of Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump Stratton. She and her husband General Tom Thumb, both little people, were a headlining act for P.T. Barnum for many years. Although there has been some non-fiction in the past written about them and Mrs. Stratton herself wrote a short autobiography (which has been described more as a travelogue) late in her life, author Melanie Benjamin takes her story in a new direction by filling in all the blanks in their story in the voice of Lavinia.
For me, it was a fascinating read. I really didn't know much about how circuses operated in the late 1800s, and Benjamin's well researched descriptions were quite eye opening. I also enjoyed how Benjamin told Lavinia's story with empathy and compassion. She made special mention of the struggles she endured from being different and how she coped with them. The author also portrayed Mr. Barnum as a very kind and sympathetic yet driven person. I'm interested as to whether or not that was how he was perceived in real life, and has definitely inspired me to read more about P.T. Barnum down the road. One thing that was repetitive in the book and became a bit grating was how Lavinia clearly viewed herself as better and more clever than most people, specifically her husband. I liked her less and less as I read the book; however, that didn't make her story any less compelling.
I also took in the second installment in the Hunger Games trilogy---Catching Fire. I'm really digging these books! I have a little place of love in my heart for dystopian fiction so they've been right up my alley. I'm on my library's hold list to get the last one, Mockingjay, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm planning on dragging (well, maybe not dragging since he read both the books too) the Cobbler to the theater in a couple of weeks when the first movie opens. I can't wait to see how the casting works out. I was kind of shocked when I heard they had cast Woody Harrelson as Haymitch.
He looks NOTHING like I envisioned the character (I was thinking more paunchy and bearded...kind of like a smaller Hagrid from Harry Potter) so I'm curious to see his portrayal. I'm also looking forward to seeing Lenny Kravitz as Cinna and Elizabeth Banks as Effie. Any other Hunger Games junkies out there? Who would you have cast as Haymitch?
My blogging has slowed way down as I'm attempting to get things back to routine at our house. After vacation and house guests and a period of winter blues, I'm ready to get things shaped up around here. Hope your week is off to a great start!
We're back from a week in Florida at Grandma's house! We had all kinds of plans to see all sorts of things, but really we just went swimming...
...and read lots of books.
There was some beach in there too.
The Cobbler and I decided to just let the kids run the show and swimming and going to the beach was all they wanted to do. But isn't that what vacation is all about anyway?
I did a lot of sitting in the sun with a book in hand and ended up with two hits and one rotten tomato. First, I read Never Let Me Go which was my book club's pick for February's meeting.
The book, set in the 1990s, is about three friends who grow up living at a boarding school in England. You meet the narrator, Kathy, at the beginning of the book and she introduces herself as someone who has the occupation of a "carer." She then reminisces about her school days with her two friends Tommy and Ruth---the twists and turns in their relationships and where that has led the three of them to today. I don't want to say too much about the plot because it will give away the element of surprise if you choose to read it. Don't you dare go near an Amazon review or a movie website (it was made into a movie starring Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in 2010) if you don't want it spoiled! What I will say is that the book was paced great, the plot was teased out in a compelling way, and it has a medical ethics question that's left hanging at the end of the book. I found the author's style to be refreshing because he doesn't spoon feed the reader. For example, Kathy's narrative assumes that you already know what "a carer" is and other plot points are revealed in the same way---the characters assume that you, as the reader, already know what they're talking about. You have to discover the truth for yourself. In the end, this was not a vacation read. I was left thinking about a lot of ethical questions which would have been great if I wasn't sunning myself and trying to have a good time. Overall, it's a good read that I can recommend.
I wish I could burn the second book I read. I gave my grandmother two books as her birthday gift --- The Three Weissmanns of Westport and I Still Dream About You. What I knew about them was the first was supposed to be a modern take on Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and the second came highly recommended by some of the folks in the 52 books in 52 weeks group. My grandma's a fast reader and read The Three Weissmanns of Westport first. She dubbed it "different," which in grandma language means it sucked. My grandma tends to be a little...ahem...conservative about other races, religions, and sexual preferences. She kept saying how the family was Jewish so I thought maybe that was her issue. I decided to try reading it anyway. It started out okay. Instead of the Mr. Dashwood character dying, he left the mom for another woman from his office and then files for divorce. The mother and the two daughters go down to a cousin's house on the coast in Connecticut to live while the divorce plays out. The plot was initially quite a bit like Sense and Sensibility. Instead of the death, you get a divorce. Instead of an ankle sprain, you have a kayaking accident that the Marianne character needs saving from. But then the author took it a little too far. Let's put it this way --- Marianne doesn't get with Colonel Brandon. Marianne, who was completely heterosexual up to this point, ends up with Willoughby's ex-wife. It was completely out of left field, and I'm surprised my grandma wasn't ranting about the lesbians instead of the Jews. Maybe she is getting more liberal in her old age? This book could have been good, but in the end it doesn't even remotely come close to holding a candle to the original.
I gave the Cobbler The Hunger Games for his birthday again on the recommendation of the some of the folks in the 52 in 52 group. He read it while we in Florida, and I started reading it on the way back on the plane. I could not put it down! This book is set in Panem, a country in the former United States, at some point in the near future. In the beginning, Katniss Everdeen and her sister Prim are preparing for the annual reaping. The reaping is a lottery in which one boy and one girl from each of the 12 districts of Panem are selected to take part in the Hunger Games--- an event when they are placed in an arena for a fight to the death with only one winner. When Prim is selected as the female participant from District 12, Katniss offers herself up as her replacement. This book moves at a break neck speed from start to finish. There is violence, there are some yucky wound descriptions, there is the requisite love triangle, and there are some wild action sequences that I didn't anticipate. Both the Cobbler and I enjoyed it. There was one scene that we both found a bit far fetched, but it is set in the future so I suppose who knows what could happen! I can't wait to see the movie (it comes out next month!) and read the other two books in the trilogy.
Much more has happened since we returned home, but that will have to wait for another day.
This one was a tearjerker! I picked up The Underside of Joy from the new books section of my library. It just came out last month so it really is new! I looked at the flap quickly and deduced it involved some sort of custody battle, threw it in my tote bag, and checked it out. Little did I know what I was in for...
The Underside of Joy opens on Joe and Ella. Joe is a photographer and runs his family's mom and pop grocery store. Ella has is pursuing a career as a wildlife guide. They have two children from Joe's previous marriage. Three years earlier, Joe's ex-wife Paige abandoned him and the children shortly after their son's birth. Four months later, Joe met Ella. Within the first 20 pages, Joe is killed in a tragic accident. Paige shows up unexpectedly at Joe's funeral. What does she want? Why is she back? Will she try to take the children?
This book was absolutely heart wrenching and felt very real. I spent a lot of pages tearing up, and the foreshadowing was brutal. You just knew things were sure to get worse before they got better. The author of this debut novel, Sere Prince Halverson, does a great job with character development. You can tell that she spent a lot of time figuring out who these people were before she laid down their lives on paper. There is a sub plot involving Joe's family regarding Italian-Americans being sent to work camps like the Japanese during World War II. It was something I had never heard of before, and it definitely added to the story. One thing that I thought the book could have done without was the epilogue. The author seemed to feel obligated to tie the whole story up with a bow on top and I felt it wasn't at all necessary. You can drop the epilogue when it comes out in paperback...really you can.
Can I recommend this book? Absolutely, but be sure to sit with a tissue box. You'll need it.
I don't get out with the girls too often, but last night was the second time in a month that I've seen a few of my high school friends. Through those girls nights out, I found out that an acquaintance of mine who is a mother of three elementary school age children is having health issues. The bottom line --- she has cancer and was given three to five years to live.
What do you do with that information? How do you even begin to process that as a wife, as a mother, as just a human being? I think it's different if you are given a short period to live, like six months. In that case, you decide what you want to do and then you get out there and do it because that time is going to fly. But five years? That's a whole different banana. How much of that time will you be well? What is your quality of life going to be like? How do you keep yourself going mentally and not get depressed? What would I want to teach my kids? How would I want to spend my time? I know I'm going to be dwelling on this one for days. I cannot stop thinking about her and her family.
Coincidentally, I just finished Bethenny Frankel's book, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life. This is a self help book with very typical advice (like "Act on it." and "Separate from the pack.") made unique and interesting again by having Frankel's life experiences intermingled in it. Who knew that she had been an actress, a production assistant for the show Saved by the Bell, an event planner, a pashmina seller, a healthy cookie baker, and on the Martha Stewart version of The Apprentice before landing on The Real Housewives of New York without even being a housewife! I was really inspired by her ability to keep pushing even after failing, sometimes spectacularly, time after time. Again, this book made me think---what is really important in life?
I think Frankel's best bit of advice in the whole book was "Everything's Your Business." On one hand, she was referring to cultivating yourself as a brand. But she goes on to say:
"When I say everything's your business, I mean treat everything you choose to do with as much importance as if your career depended on it. Everything's your business means that every job, person, and experience is worth your full attention. Whether you are at work or cooking dinner or cleaning your apartment or reading a book to your child, make what you do matter, and do it well."
This spoke to me. This is what is important in life. Make every moment matter. I am guilty of splitting my attention or nodding and saying "uh-huh" when I'm not really listening or doing things half way or not at all if I think I might fail. I want what I'm doing to matter today when I'm gone because I listened and I acted and I loved.
I'm still doing the Total Mom Makeover, but in this case I am going to do it half way. My friend Michelle told me that maybe the reason I don't have much to write about some of the tasks is because I'm already there. Maybe I don't need a Total Mom Makeover...maybe just a Partial Mom Makeover! So I've decided to do the parts of the book that are actually going to benefit me instead of doing the whole thing and have it be an exercise in futility.
In that spirit, the exercises for over the weekend were to develop an AM and PM routine. I have both of those already. Do I do them as written everyday? No. I am especially bad with the PM routine because I hate doing dishes. Sometimes the dishes just get left until the next morning if I have an especially large pile of pots and pans. In the end though, I think they can still work with some finessing.
The Week 2, Day 1 tasks were to do the following: -Create a sanctuary (get off your butt and make your bedroom clean and nice looking) -Move your body (do some stretching in the morning to get yourself moving) -Drink up (get your hydration on!) -Squeeze in a nap (YAY!) -Graze (she advocates eating healthy snacks like fruits and veggies throughout the day) -Take your vitamins (she's a B vitamin fan) - Breathe (do some deep breathing to start your day) She also suggested writing down things that were sapping your energy and coming up with ways to attack those in a positive fashion. She also wanted you to make your bed when you get up.
This all felt pretty basic to me (which I guess is why Week #2 is actually called "Basic Mom." Really it is.) I'm feeling pretty good about these areas although the top of my dresser could use a 15 minute clean up and running the vacuum through there couldn't hurt.
I found the Week #2, Day #2 tasks to be a little R rated so I'll let you read that yourself if you're interested. My blog is geared towards education, but not necessarily sex education, so if you want the author's advice about how to get down and dirty with your loved one feel free to consult pages 63-71.
So live in the moment today, my friends! You never know how long it's going to last. Give your little ones big hugs tonight...
The Night Circus is another book with more than one piece of art for its cover. Here's the art from the one I read:
I think the UK one, however, is more delicious and evocative of the novel:
And delicious it was! The Night Circus is the debut novel for author Erin Morgenstern. It came up in my Amazon recommendations a couple of months ago and I added myself to the wait list for it at my library. It showed up for me last week and I dove in.
I want to reveal very little detail about the plot in this review because I don't want to take away from your own reading experience. In the beginning, I genuinely had no idea where the plot was going and I liked it that way. The book is written very similar in style to the book The Time Traveler's Wife. Each chapter is headed with a location and a date with the year. The chapters are not in chronological order. At first this threw me off and I did a lot of page shuffling (I imagine this might be kind of annoying for those with e-readers), but I finally settled into it. The story is set mostly in the late 1800s and has magic at its core---not illusions like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but real ancient magic. There are two magicians introduced at the beginning who pit their students, Celia and Marco, against each other in a magical battle that cannot end until the other is defeated. The venue chosen is a circus created specifically for the competition by an acquaintance of one of the magicians. Part of the way Celia and Marco compete is by using their skills to add attractions to the circus, like a garden made entirely out of ice, a maze made of clouds, and a tree that grants wishes. This is what makes the book so special --- the circus becomes a character itself. In the midst of their duel, Celia and Marco realize they are in this together. How will the competition end? Who will win? Can the circus survive the battle?
Morgenstern seriously outdoes herself with the descriptions of the people and acts within the circus. I could smell the circus (she often references the scent of caramel and smoke), I could taste the circus (the characters are constantly purchasing delectable tidbits to munch on as the wander from tent to tent), and I could see the circus in my mind as clearly as any room in my house. I looked at some of the reviews on Amazon and some reviewers found all the descriptions to be tedious. I, on the other hand, loved it! While this book could have been ordinary and forgettable, the author's knack for detail really pulls the reader into the story effortlessly. One minor issue is that Celia and Marco could have used a wee bit more character development. Especially early on in the book, it's very hard to tell what their motivation is for engaging in the competition when they weren't the ones who started it or agreed to it. I understood why this was the case after reading this quote from Erin Morgenstern:
"The circus started as a tangent. I would come up with a vague idea and a handful of characters. The last week of October, in ’05, I had a concept that I liked and I got really bored with it, so I sent all the characters to the circus, and the circus was much more interesting. The next year, I wrote all about the circus. That’s where the book came from. It didn’t have a plot at that point. It started as vignettes."
It all makes sense now. No wonder the circus is stronger than the main characters! The supporting characters, however, are quite wonderful. I felt like I was opening a little present with each person I got to meet in this book. I was particularly taken with...geez...just about everyone. Poppet and Widget, the Burgess sisters, Chandresh, Herr Thiessen, Tsukiko---she made all the characters special in some way.
Okay, now that I'm done gushing, I discovered that I'm not the only one who is taken with this book. In the book, the circus has groupies called reveurs (dreamers) that follow the circus around from location to location. They identify each other by wearing all black with a splash of red in the way of an accessory like a scarf or a flower. Get this---there are literally people dressing up like reveurs and attending the book signings for The Night Circus! Check out some of these photos:
The movie rights to the book have been acquired by Summit Entertainment, the same production company responsible for the Twilight movies. Do I foresee lines of people clad in black with red scarves lined up for midnight viewings a la Harry Potter? I believe I do.
And since it is the new trend in book promotion, here is the trailer for The Night Circus:
I hope you pick it up and enjoy this one. I have a feeling I'll be reading it for a second time sometime soon.
When I went to the library this past week, I had the opportunity to browse the new books section. The Cobbler came with me and the kids (which NEVER happens) so I was able to actually look around BY MYSELF! I came across the book The Art of Forgetting. The title was familiar to me so I must have read some review of it somewhere. Then, I noticed the author's name. Again, familiar. So familiar in fact that I immediately flipped to the back inside cover to see if there was a photo of the author. There was and I recognized the face. I went to high school with the author Camille Noe Pagan. I mentioned my discovery to my younger sister and her response was, "Oh yeah. I ran on the cross country team with her." Needless to say, I was interested to see what a peer from high school had produced in the way of a novel.
The Art of Forgetting opens on the main character Marissa, a health and fitness magazine editor in New York City, waiting to meet her best friend Julia for dinner. Marisa catches a glimpse of Julia through the restaurant window as she gets plowed down by a taxi while crossing the street. Julia suffers a traumatic brain injury that forces her to abandon her life in New York and move back to Michigan to live with her parents. The book tracks Marissa's struggle to come to terms with the changes in Julia's personality post-accident and how Julia's past influence on her life has affected her. Because Julia has lost her filter on what is appropriate, she begins trying to reconnect Marissa with her college boyfriend whom Julia forced her to break up with a decade earlier. Can Marissa be her own person and live her own life without being under Julia's thumb?
As I began reading The Art of Forgetting, I was a little distracted by knowing the person who wrote the book. I was not friends with this girl, but I remember her because she was popular and well liked. She was of the student council/cheerleading squad variety, except unlike in the movies, she had a warm personality. Getting back to the review --- as I started reading I was distracted by the narrator seemingly being a thinly disguised version of the author. I even let a surprised laugh escape when I realized she named the main character's boyfriend's mother after another girl who went to our high school. Trust me---she has not met anyone else with this name. In the end, I was pleasantly surprised with this book. The Art of Forgetting was an easy read with a few cringe worthy moments, courtesy of Julia and Marissa's weight obsessed mother. The smoothness of the narrative was similar to the books I just read by Sarah Addison Allen. Although the subject matter was a bit heavy, you always felt like you were reading something that could easily be made into made for TV movie. It was a worthy debut with an uplifting ending. I'll be interested to see Pagan tackles next in her writing.
On a separate but related note, 2012 is off to an uneven start for me. I've been suffering a bit with a still unidentified illness (I don't want to elaborate because that would definitely be TMI :-). I want to beat my head against the wall on this one---I just can't see why I can't stay healthy! Because of feeling under the weather, I haven't even considered my goals for the upcoming year which is very unlike me. I've also been thinking a lot about dreams. It was kind of a shock seeing that book on the shelf in the library and thinking "Wow, someone I know has published a novel!" Then, I found out that another girl I was friends with in high school just came out with an album of Christian music and was named one of Billboard's Artists to Watch in 2011. When we were in high school, she was constantly talking of how she wanted to get a record deal one day. I have to hand it to her. Our 20th high school reunion might be only two years away, but she did it! I bought the MP3 copy of the album and the songs are pretty darn good too.
So where does that leave me? I learned a long time ago that you can't compare yourself to others, but sometimes it's hard not to---especially when you were the one voted "Most Likely to Succeed" in high school. Do I want to be a professional singer? Nope and I don't have the singing talent to be one anyway. Do I want to be a novelist? That would be nice, but I don't think I have the motivation in that area to produce anything epic right now. The Cobbler reminded me that I'm a great wife and mother, although it's my nature question that daily. When the kids are driving me out of my mind, of course I'm wondering if I'm doing the right thing! My bucket list has been pretty much checked off. I did all the skydiving, hot air ballooning, and European travelling I wanted to do before we had kids. So what now? That's what I'm going to be considering over the next few weeks. I am glad to be doing what I'm doing. I'm grateful for my life. To steal a quote from The Art of Forgetting:
"Oh Marissa," Julia said, sounding almost weary. "You're so lucky. And one day you'll realize it. But I think luck isn't nearly as important as what you decide to do with it."
So it's time for me to decide --- what am I going to make of my luck? What are you going to make of yours?
When I found out my book club had selected The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as the book for our January meeting, I had never heard of it. I didn't know if it was fiction or non-fiction, and I didn't know who Henrietta Lacks was. I'm so glad I read this book. What an amazing and crazy story!
Henrietta Lacks was a real person. She was a black woman born in 1920 that grew up to be a rural tobacco farmer. She was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins and died that year in 1951. While she was treated there, a doctor took a tissue sample from her cervix without her permission. Ultimately, that tissue sample was cultured and grown into a cell line named HeLa, after the first two initials of her first and last name. It was the first cell line that was considered "immortal." Most cells die after 50 divisions, but HeLa does not. HeLa was used in developing the polio vaccine, was shot into outer space on the space shuttle, and blown up in an atomic bomb. HeLa samples exist all over the world today and are still used in research. Henrietta's children would not find out about the existence of HeLa until over 20 years later.
Author Rebecca Skloot first heard of Henrietta Lacks in a biology class when she was 16. Thus, her obsession with finding out what happened to Henrietta began. She spent over a decade researching HeLa and interviewing people for this book. She went to the town where Henrietta lived, she interviewed the doctors and other involved in the case, and she developed a personal relationship with the Lacks family. She even went so far as to travel with Deborah, Henrietta's daughter, as she did research for the book. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks really takes a deep dive into the pain that the family endured and the ethical implications of what happened. Reading about the anxiety that Henrietta's daughter endured about her mother's cells being experimented on all over the world was heartbreaking. The family had such a roller coaster of emotions about it that Skloot often did not talk to them for months at a time during the process of writing the book.
Who do human tissue samples belong to? Until I read this book, I thought my cells and tissue belonged to me. According to the U.S. law, they do not. Once cells leave my body they are no longer mine. HeLa does not belong to the Lacks family and none of the profits that have been made from its sale or discoveries related to it do either. At the time of publication, a test tube of HeLa was available for sale for $167.
This book was a really eye opening story for me. Did this really happen in the United States? It did and the story continues to go on. This book explores the issues of race, class, and medical ethics using a novel-like narrative. The story is about science and medicine, but doesn't let us forget that HeLa isn't just a cell line. HeLa has a human face, and her name is Henrietta Lacks. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
I'm such a sucker for a gorgeous book cover! Over the course of 2011, I've heard several times from those also doing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge that Sarah Addison Allen was an author to check out! I've had her debut novel, Garden Spells, on my radar for a while now and finally settled down just before Christmas to read it. After whizzing through it in two days, I then followed it up with her second novel, The Sugar Queen. Her style is very similar to Alice Hoffman and Garden Spells is reminiscent of Hoffman's Practical Magic.
Garden Spells opens on the house of Claire Waverly. The Waverly family has always been special. The townspeople have sought potions from their garden to help them with life and love. Claire owns a catering business and has a special talent of making just the right food to make what her client's desires come true. Her distant elderly cousin, Evanelle, has the gift of anticipation. Evanelle is always giving people things she knows they will need down the road. When Claire's estranged sister Sydney returns to town with her 5 year old daughter Bay, Claire's life is turned upside down. What magic will happen when the Waverly women reunite?
In The Sugar Queen, 27 year old Josey is trapped. She lives with her elderly mother as her glorified errand girl, and she seeks comfort in her treasure trove of sweets, travel magazines, and romance novels she keeps in a secret room attached to her closet. When Della Lee, a tough talking hard living waitress, takes refuge in her closet, Josey's life starts changing. Is it for the better?
Both novels have similar plot lines---stifled heroine's life is up heaved when a mysterious person enters her life. Both novels have love (and a wee bit o' sex), a violent ex-husband or boyfriend, and supernatural forces at work. Both novels are also pleasant, mindless reads. After all the heavy reading I've done this year, it's nice to end December on a fluffy, cotton candy like note. If you need a pleasant book to tuck you in at night, Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen fit the bill.
I fell completely off the horse in terms of my goal of finishing 52 books in 2011. This last month has been a struggle. I know it's not technically winter, but it certainly feels like it, and I always struggle with being motivated to do anything once the days get shorter and darker. I've pumped up my Vitamin D intake and the Cobbler has insisted that I take out my Happy Light so I have an inkling of hope that I can still make it!
Bearing that in mind, I have been wading my way through The Elegance of the Hedgehog over the last month. It was my book club's pick for our December meeting so needless to say I didn't finish it in time, but the woman who is charge of getting our books back to the library took pity on me and let me keep the book a few extra days. Thankfully, I completed it today--- my 46th book!
Just so we're clear here---the book is not about a hedgehog. Well, not literally. The Elegance of the Hedgehog has two narrators --- Renee, a 50 something concierge for a high end apartment building in Paris, and Paloma, a 12 year old girl who lives in one of the apartments. Because she finds life to be pretty meaningless, Paloma is planning to kill herself and set her apartment on fire on her 13th birthday. While the two characters don't have any interaction until mid way through the book, they have much in common. Renee and Paloma both feel trapped in what they view as a sea of mediocrity.They both feel they have to hide their intellect from those around them, and they both despise the airs put on by the wealthy people who live in the building. Renee goes to such extremes to hide her intelligence so that she seems a "normal" concierge that she purchases poor quality food (apparently, a concierge wouldn't eat filet mignon) and rigs her TV to appear that it's on all the time to maintain the facade. Everything changes when the food critic who lives on the fourth floor succumbs to a heart attack and his apartment is sold to a Japanese man named Kakuro Ozu. Ozu immediately sees Renee and Paloma as they are and attempts to befriend them. His actions ultimately change the course of their lives.
Overall, I was charmed by this book. Unlike the pretentious 15 year old narrator in the book The Beginners that I read earlier in the year, Paloma's 12 year old voice is actually believable. She wants to find a reason to live in this world and hunts relentlessly for it. Renee is also a very sympathetic character and you root for her to come out of her shell as the book progresses. It's been common in many of the books I've read this year for the authors to have their narrators alternate chapters. This is the case in this book as well. One interesting twist though is the use of different fonts. Renee has a font similar to Times New Roman, while Paloma has a tinier version of what appears to be Arial.
My only complaints with the book (which really are minor) are its long passages about philosophy and its apparent political agenda. In this book, with the exception of Ozu, if you're rich, you're stupid. The rich people in the book are educated, but about things that are pointless in Renee's view. Paloma feels the same way about her entire family, which is justified by how they're portrayed, but it rang a little forced to me. In addition, there were a few points in the book where the author was trying to make a point about the level of Renee's intelligence by having her go on and on about Kant and a couple other philosophers' theories. That really made the book drag. If those passages had been tightened up a bit by the book's editor, this book could have gone beyond charming to amazing.
In the end, The Elegance of the Hedgehog leaves you with a wonderful message --- that there is beauty to be found in our broken world. And at this time of year, that's something that I needed to hear.
Before I get into my review, I have to share a few images with you---
It always amazes me the variety of covers a book may have depending upon the country of its release. Why the red-orange line drawing of the New York City skyline topped off by the tightrope walker on the U.S. cover, while Europe gets the guy doing the back bend or the man lying down on the tightrope?
When I first found out my book club was reading Let the Great World Spin for our November meeting, I was under the impression the book was about tightrope walking. I guess that's a logical conclusion since there's a tightrope walker in all the cover art. So when I started reading the book and the author opened the book with two Irish brothers Corrigan and Cieran, I kept trying to figure out who was going to end up being the tight rope guy. It turns out the answer is neither.
Let the Great World Spin is set in Vietnam era New York City. Corrigan is a member of a monastic order and he lives in the projects trying to help prostitutes. His brother Cieran comes from Ireland to live with him. The first seventy pages of the book sets up their relationship and Corrigan's relationship with others. A tragic incident occurs at the end of the chapter. I was waiting anxiously to see what happened next, but I didn't get to find out just then because the next chapter was about Claire.
Claire is a woman who lives in a Park Avenue penthouse who lost her son in Vietnam. She's a member of a group of women who have all lost children to the war who periodically meet for coffee and breakfast. It really was an abrupt jump for me. What about Corrigan and Cieran? What happened to them? At this point, I was a bit frustrated with the author but decided to read on. I didn't get to read anymore about Claire though because the third chapter was about Lara and Blaine.
The book continued this way---each chapter from a different character's perspective. The one thing that seemed to unite them was them all seeing or hearing about a tightrope walker up on a line between the World Trade Center Towers. The more you read, however, the more you find out that it isn't the tightrope walker who is connecting them all. They were all already connected.
Let the Great World Spin is one of those books that when you finally realize what's happening (in this case, that all the characters are linked in some way) you can't wait to get to the next chapter. I was a fan of the TV show Lost when it was airing and it had a similar format as this book. In each episode, you would get some background on a character and then it would turn out that they're linked to someone else on the island. It's the same situation here. The author Colum McCann does an amazing job describing people and locations. I'm not a person who normally can hear a character's voice in my head. It's usually my own voice just reading the text. While reading this book though, I actually felt like I could hear the characters speak. He described New York City in such a way that the location actually became a character for me. Because the characters develop more and more in each chapter (some that were mere supporting actors in the beginning get to tell their own story later in the book), you feel like you really know them by the end. A hardened prostitute named Tillie becomes a grandmother desperate to see her grandchildren. A rich white woman from the Upper East Side becomes close friends with a black woman from the Bronx. A man can walk the tightrope between the twin towers and live. Everything that is impossible is suddenly possible...or is it? Ultimately, the book's message for me was that there is hope in all things no matter how dark the outlook is at the moment.
Even though it's the 44th book I've read this year, Let the Great World Spin is my favorite book so far. It hands down beats everything else I've read and I highly recommend it.
I leave you with a line that comes near the end of the book that sums up the book's message for me:
Red received The Mysterious Benedict Society as a a birthday gift from my sister Christy earlier in the year. Christy is the relative who gives books for every occasion (she's notorious for trolling used book stores) and usually makes good selections. This time she picked another hit.
The book opens with protagonist Reynie Muldoon living at an orphanage. Reynie is an extremely bright child who longs for more challenges in life. When his teacher Miss Perumal comes across a curious newspaper advertisement soliciting gifted children looking for "special opportunities" to take a test, Reynie decides to check it out. Only four brilliant children make the cut after the testing---Reynie, the obsessive compulsive Sticky Washington, the MacGyver-esque Kate Wetherall, and the annoyingly stubborn Constance Contraire. They come together under the tutelage of the peculiar Mr. Benedict to form "The Mysterious Benedict Society" and begin a dangerous adventure to save the world.
The author's tone had a Roald Dahl feeling to me, which I enjoyed. As a read aloud, this book was LONG. It clocks in at 485 pages and the print is on the small side. Because of the length, the book at times dragged. Sometimes I felt that the writer could have tightened the plot up a bit and made it clip along a bit faster. That's from an adult point of view though because Red LOVED it. She couldn't wait for a new chapter each night. We took a few nights off here and there to read other things so it actually took us nearly two months to read it. In fact, she was so into the book that she wants to start the sequel, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey. I'm pushing for a break to read another Aunt Christy gift, Princess Academy. It looks right up Red's alley, not to mention it won the Newbery Honor in 2006.
I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things with blogging and life in general this coming week. Last week was kind of a mess with Halloween (had a great time, but it was a little piece of crazy), jury duty, and being sick. Yes, jury duty actually made me sick. After they picked my panel for a trial, the deputy escorted us to a spare court room where we sat for hours with no water. There were no drinking fountains on the floor and the bathroom was extremely filthy. I resorted to drinking from the bathroom tap at one point out of desperation. By the time I got home, my headache was bad from the dehydration that I threw up. So I can say with confidence, jury duty makes me sick. In the end, the defendant plead guilty to a lesser charge so they didn't need us anyway. Sigh...
And Christmas is officially on it's way whether I like it or not. It drives me batty when the local radio stations start playing Christmas music the day after Halloween. Grrrrr.... On a good note, you all will get sneak peeks on all the projects I'm working on for gifts in the coming weeks.
As my year of attempting to read 52 books in 52 weeks is rapidly coming to a close, I continue to look for more interesting reads to inspire me, make me think, and bring me some joy. And of course a little brain candy is good for you!
Two of my favorite people in my book club offered up the book The City of Ember as a recommendation. While this is considered a children's book recommended for ages 9-12, its topic is rather serious. The book opens with some people known as "The Builders" inserting a message for the people of Ember into a box. The box is to be entrusted to the mayor and will open on its own in 200 years. When the box comes into the hands of the seventh mayor, he removes the box from its hiding place, takes it home, and attempts to open it in the hope that it will offer some cure for the "coughing sickness" that is afflicting him and many other people in Ember. He fails to open the box, and dies before returning it to its spot. The box and its contents remain a mystery and come to rest in the back of a closet.
The book fast forwards to the year 241. Lina Mayfleet is 12 and has completed her schooling. She await the mayor's arrival at her classroom where she will receive her job assignment in the city of Ember. Ember is a city engulfed in complete darkness, only lit by street lights and the lights inside buildings. There are frequent blackouts, however, because the city's power comes from an old generator that is in ill repair. The city is gradually deteriorating. Rumors of food and supply shortages are rampant. The clothes washing machines that used to clean the clothes now have to be agitated by hand. Everything is saved so it can be resold. The one thing Lina wants is to receive the job assignment of "messenger"---the people who run from one person to another delivering messages for money. Instead of drawing the messenger job, Lina is assigned to the Pipeworks as a water and sewerage repair assistant. A childhood friend Doon gets her coveted messenger job and offers to trade. Then the real story begins...
I enjoyed this book and it reminded me a lot of Lois Lowry's The Giver with a smidge of the movie Logan's Run. There are so many questions that need to be answered in this book. What's in the box? Where is Ember? Can they escape? Should they even try?
There were some really interesting details that the author included that I enjoyed. The city's library is filled with books only written by the people who have lived since Ember was founded. While looking for a book about fire in the library, Doon discovers a book called "Mysterious Words from the Past." One of the words referenced is "hogwash." The entry states "means nonsense, though no one knows what a hog is or why one would wash it." Another passage that I found interesting and touching is when Lina finds out that a store owner has some colored pencils. Pencils have become rare and colored ones are nearly unheard of. He's charging $5 for each pencil when it only costs $7 to get a coat. Lina wants them so bad she buys a blue and green. She later, coincidentally, uses the blue pencil to color the sky of a picture she's drawing even though she has never seen the sky before.
After reading the book, I discovered that it had been made into a movie starring Bill Murray and Tim Robbins in 2008. I don't remember hearing of it, but now I'll have to get it from the library. Here's the trailer:
While clearly written for children, this book definitely posed some questions that are important for adults to think about too. What would happen if the Earth were no longer inhabitable. Where would we go? What would we do? What can we do to make sure that the future is safe for our children and grandchildren? I think I smell a future read aloud for Red and I.
My book club's selection for October was Leap of Faith by Jordan's Queen Noor. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I remember hearing her name before, but that's about it. After finishing up A Tale of Two Cities, I plowed through this book in record time.
Queen Noor (Lisa Halaby was her birth name) was born in the United States. Her father was the head of the FAA under JFK, and she went on to become part of the first co-ed graduating class at Princeton University. After graduating with a degree in architecture and urban planning, she went on to work for a firm in Tehran. Due to her father's government connections, she met many dignitaries including Jordan's King Hussein. King Hussein's 3rd wife had recently died in a helicopter crash, leaving him with three children under the age of 5. Their whirlwind courtship included the children, and upon their marriage she took on the name Noor Al Hussein, meaning "the light of Hussein." A large portion of the book chronicles the political upheaval that occurred in the Middle East during the 1980s and 1990s, including Desert Storm. The book then takes us through King Hussein's battle with cancer and ultimately his death in 1999.
I enjoyed this book. I thought it was a good mix of the history of the region and personal anecdotes. I especially enjoyed hearing the stories that humanized the Queen---like their constant tardiness. I found a story of them being late for a meeting with the British royal family especially comical. They were so late that they completely missed lunch and arrived in time for afternoon tea. Queen Noor was so hungry that she took extra tea sandwiches and then even ate some of the vegetables out of the royals' garden while touring the palace grounds! There was also a funny tale of how their family dog would often swim in front of their vacation home and have near misses with Israeli gun boats. The dog would swim close to the Israeli border, and as the gunboats approached the King would speed out in their boat and pick the dog up.
I was most intrigued with the history of the region. I had no idea that the concept of creating the nation of Israel pre-dated World War II. I also had very little understanding of the level of bitterness the founding of Israel created in the Palestinians. I am very sympathetic to the discrimination and the pain the Jews have experienced. On the other hand, the idea of being forced out of my home and off my land to resettle elsewhere and have someone else move in because some other far off countries decided it was a good idea---wow. Yes, I think I would be angry.
While I found the book very interesting, the majority of my book club that met last night disliked the book. The consensus was that they were hoping for more memoir and less political history of the region. I understood their point of view, but I also understand that Queen Noor is still part of the Jordan political scene (her stepson is the current king) and needs to protect her country's interests and pride. I guess my expectations for how much would be revealed was lower. In addition, they felt it was very one sided. I thought --- of course it is! She's defending her husband's legacy!
I think I also felt different because I was ignorant about the time period covered because of my age (I was a child and teenager during the events in the book). I feel by reading the book I really learned quite a bit about the Middle East and why they are so leery of the United States. One instance that really shocked me was when the U.S. wanted King Hussein to change the location of where he signed their peace agreement with Israel from a city of the border between the two countries to the White House. King Hussein strongly felt it should be signed in his country. To get him to sign the peace agreement at the White House, the U.S. forgave a $700 million (you read that right --- $700 MILLION) debt that Jordan owed and gave Jordan a fleet of fighter jets. The debt forgiveness and jets were passed in the middle of the night attached to an agriculture bill while C-SPAN wasn't filming. Obviously, the King took the deal. The whole episode made me feel even more uncomfortable about my country's involvement in Middle Eastern politics.
The bottom line is Leap of Faith is an interesting read. If you go into it knowing that you're going to get a lot of political history and not so much memoir, you'll be just fine.
