Advice to a Young Wife: A little book about love

January 9, 2008 in Love, Marriage, Relationships, Romance | by | 3 comments

Cover ImageI’ve been thinking a lot about relationships lately.  With everyone I know getting married, it’s inevitable that I’d ponder what marriage means, particularly when everyone is trying to push me into it (and I’m digging in my heels as hard as I can).  I can’t help but feel that they are all pushing me into marriage without any consideration or respect for the relationship that I already have.  Because to me that is what is important – what exists between two people, not how they go about it. 

There are as many treatises singing the praises of marriage as the salvation of society as there are polemics about why it is the road straight to destruction.  Marriage as a social construct has been studied to death (or divorce).   But very rarely does a reader uncover a fine-focused discussion about what is the relationship between two people.  Or what such a relationship could be, freed from the trappings of social obligation.

I read this book when I was a teenager, with no personal conception of love or committment or monogamy. I was “in love” with a new boy every five minutes (more if class just got out and everyone was milling around the hallway).  I was not exactly the target audience and to be honest I don’t even remember where or why I picked it up.  Still something about this book clearly resonated it’s dog eared like crazy.

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Pillars of the Earth: Why Oprah and Ken are in cahoots

December 17, 2007 in History, Ken Follett, Novels, Oprah books (eye roll), Religion | by | 1 comment

Cover ImageEveryone knows how I feel about Oprah books.  And while I’d love to give myself the luxury of scrambling up on the soapbox and tearing down the woman for her choice of reading, I will at this moment gracefully decline to do so. 

Do not, fair readers, fear that I have gone soft or that I have gained a holiday spirit during this festive time of year.  No, I will refrain from an all out attack per se, but only because I have a very specific beef with Ms. Winfrey. 

I first read Pillars of The Earth when I was about 14 or 15.  I kept that battered mass paperback copy through college, many moves and life upheavals.  I didn’t think about it until recently, when I heard that Mr. Follett wrote a sequel to it called World Without End  (which I quickly bought) and I thought perhaps it warranted a re-read, particularly considering the roughly 15 years since I had last read it.  I went in search of my dog eared mass paperback and alas I could not find it.  I think it was collateral damage from our last and greatest move.

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It’s all Yiddish to me

December 14, 2007 in Gregory Maguire, Humor, Michael Chabon, Mystery, Novels, Politics, Religion, Strange tales, YA Fantasy, Yiddish | by | Leave a comment

Details

I’ve written before about how I develop ( oftentimes extreme)  author crushes.  Chabon and Maguire are two of the my biggest.  They make me want to a be better writer (which is to say a good writer), they make me feel ashamed that I  have never created the kind of sentences they do, seemingly effortlessly.  I often stop and reread, particularly in Chabon’s case, a phrase that is a brain teaser, something you have to really sit and ponder before you really get it.

Suffice to say, I love these guys.  I adore them.  If I were a worshipful person, I might even deify them. 

Which is why these two books were such a fist-in-the-gut disappointment. 

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Mr. B. Gone: The Devil and Clive Barker

December 7, 2007 in Clive Barker, Fantasy, Humor, Novels, Religion | by | 4 comments

MBGIf I were to create my idea of the perfect fantasy love child of, well, fantasy literature, I would take the best of Neil Gaimen and Clive Barker and meld them into one.  I would stir gently the darker tones of Clive and fold them into the fluffy yet dense snarkiness and black humor of Neil.  I would take the intimidating strength of Neil’s solid characters and plant them into Clive’s firmly rooted geography.

The result would likely be very much like this book.

Perhaps because I’m an atheist I can love stories about angels and demons without any of the resulting fear or guilt.  It makes for great story telling that is endlessly entertaining, particularly if you aren’t worried about your immortal soul.

Though this book was described as bone chilling I found it mostly amusing and even in parts, affecting.  Mr. B. Gone is a low class demon with a certain amount of charm.  He directly threatens, cajoles and otherwise manipulates the reader, all in an attempt to get you to burn the book.  In between such tirades he tells the story of how he came to be stuck in the book itself.

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Great Feuds in History: Wherefore art thou editing?

December 3, 2007 in DO NOT READ, History, Non Fiction, Politics | by | 1 comment

Cover ImageI finished Mr. B. Gone (I’ll get to that later) and needed a new book for today’s commute, so I picked up this one.  I like nothing more than a good feud.  Historical, epic feuds are best.  And with Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots on the cover, how could I resist?  Two of my favorites in the world of political cat fights.

Alas, I only made it only to page 7. 

That’s right page 7 –  wherein Mr. Colin Evans, the author of this book, said that Mary Queen of Scots was the daughter of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII.

I had to read it three times, each time more desperately trying to find the loophole.  Some word or another that I’d missed that was changing the meaning of the sentence.  Because, you see she was actually their granddaughter.  Her parents were James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise (who was French).  But no, the sentence was unfortunately very very wrong.

How does such a blatant, glaring, easily discovered, easily fixed error get into such book?  Let alone STAY in such a book.  Where are all the ever eager intern researchers?  How did this slip through the cracks?

Unfortunately this is way beyond my tolerance level.  Though I understand that not everyone is the Anglo-phile that I am.  I know that most people in this country know all the American presidents instead of all the British monarchs from the Saxons to Elizabeth II.  I know that I have a bit of an obsession.  But that is beside the point because due to this blinding beacon of an error I now have no trust that the rest of his information is correct, which of course makes reading the book a useless endeavor. 

Into the book swap at work it goes.  Too bad, because it might have been interesting.

 

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon: Revisionist Feminist?

November 21, 2007 in Adventure, Dave Barry, Fairy Tales, Novels, Peter Pan, Ridley Pearson, YA Fantasy | by | 1 comment

I read an article this morning in the latest Horn Book Magazine about Peter Pan.  In the article, Peter Pan. I am he. I am not, the author, Emily Jenkins, mourns the fact that while the stage version of the story allows for girls to imagine they are Peter Pan, the book and Disney movie version did not.  This saddens her.  She describes her extreme dislike of Wendy and her love for Peter thus:

“I couldn’t bear to be boxed in as Wendy boxes herself, with Peter’s complicity: she sews on pockets and prepares meal in the underground lair, spending her Neverland time playing Edwardian household rather than having adventures.  I didn’t want to be her, I wanted to be Peter.  And therefore I wanted to be a boy.”

When I was younger I thought I was the only little girl to feel this way.  To be indignant that the boys got the snakes and snails and puppy dog’s tails (the greatest injustice, for I loved puppies) and girls were left with sugar and spice and everything nice (yes, I loved sugar, but as much as puppies? No way!).  I now know many women who felt that way.  To know that it’s not weird and that these are the women I tend to respect more anyway is a a great validation. 

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Peter and The Secret of Rundoon: Reading is the journey, except when you are travelling

November 19, 2007 in Adventure, Fairy Tales, Novels, Peter Pan, Strange tales, YA, YA Fantasy | by | 1 comment

I have a really hard time choosing books for trips.   What you may ask, just take one of the three books you are currently reading!  Ah, but you would be quite mistaken.  First, I am very likely (unless I just started it) to finish any of them while in the middle of the trip (or worse, halfway through a plane flight).  Second, especially on a vacation, I want to bring something new and potentially exciting.  I don’t want the same old book I’ve been reading before bed.  I want a vacation book!

So alright, I’ll bring an entirely new book.  Except well, that too leaves me open to problems.  What if, on the plane on the way there, I decide I’m not really that “into” the book I brought.  Perhaps I brought the wrong book for the mood (often a hard thing to gauge when one embarks on a journey) or maybe the book just stinks.  Then what?

Let me try this again. Clearly new books are the way to go, but I’ll need a backup.  To be safe probably two backups.  Of course if I’m going on a trip of more than a few days, one with some downtime for reading, I will likely read one book at least, so to be quite certain I’ll need three backups. 

OK got it.  Four new books. Read the rest of this entry »

At Large and At Small: Or, in other words, Just Right

October 31, 2007 in Anne Fadiman, Essays, Non Fiction, Writing | by | Leave a comment

I’ve said before that I’m a reluctant short story reader (and I can see why you may think I protest too much, for I do read more short fiction than I honestly should for someone who claims to dislike it).  My biggest difficulty with it is that I always end up wanting more. 

I like to read in large time increments – settling down on a cold winter’s evening under a blanket, wiling away a Sunday afternoon, passing time on a long commute.   Short fiction tends to disrupt my flow, making me break the surface of reality too soon.  And since it doesn’t do justice to the next story to jump right in before you’ve digested the last one I’m often at a loss at to what to do when I’m finished.

So one would intelligently ask Why then are you reading essays? 

Good question.

The answer is twofold:   1) I LOVE Anne Fadiman – I would read a cereal box she composed and 2) I’ve recently found myself with only short snippets of time to read so essays fit just right.

Of course there is always the danger that when you are in transition from one essay (or story) to the next one that your interest will be stolen away by another, more time consuming endeavor.  Sadly such was the case for me this week.  I was taken against my will into Borders where I bought a dog book (aka my crack) and I’ve been reading that ever since.  I’ll get back to Anne in due time. 

She’s a good companion right before sleep sets in. Except when she makes me laugh too hard.

A perfect quote about reading by an author I’ve never read

October 31, 2007 in Uncategorized | by | Leave a comment

“As much as I admire and value intellectualism and experimentation, I’ve discovered that unless a book has a throbbing heart as well as a sexy brain, I feel like the story is a specimen in a sealed glass jar and not a living, breathing creature I want to take by the hand and talk to for hours on end.”

Myla Goldberg from this Slate article.

A Year of Living Biblically: An aspirational blog

October 24, 2007 in A.J. Jacobs, Books I want to read, Humor, Living Biblically, Non Fiction, Religion, Strange tales | by | Leave a comment

[Author’s note:  I’m taking off on a tangent today, so don’t be alarmed. The blog format will stay as usual, this is just a jaunt into a new direction. I’ve been sick for over a week, so you can blame the cold medicine if you wish.  I certainly am.  *I have not read this book*  But I want to really, really badly.  Unfortunately I will need to wait a) to get it from the library or b) until it comes out in affordable paperback to read it.  But that doesn’t meant I can’t start talking about it.  It’s a little thing we in the biz call buzz.]

I’ve only very recently become the kind of person who reads the NY Times Sunday Book Review.  Before this, I had always found my books in a very haphazard, but still pleasantly random kind of way.  Now I read reviews.  I try to follow what’s new and exciting.  Actually it’s taken some getting used to; it’s a little unsettling to be aware of books when they come out (or before) as opposed to picking up a stray paperback from a pile in a store.  Moreover it’s not healthy for my book buying habit – because, for me, to be aware of the new hardcovers is to buy them.

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Jessica’s Reading

Jesse’s Reading

Jesse and Jessica are Both Reading

Devin’s Reading

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