Monday, June 29, 2009

The Hour I First Believed

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb is the best book I've read this year. It's a big book, covering a family's history over several generations and a good chunk of American history along the way. But the central event of the book is the Columbine shooting. Lamb must have done painstaking research, and it shows in the haunting scenes of the shooting itself and the aftermath. The narrator of the book is Caelum Quirk, a high school English and creative writing teacher at Columbine. His wife, Maureen, is a school nurse at the same school. Caelum is actually on the east coast following a family death when the attack comes, but he learns of it through his wife's experience hiding in a cabinet in the library, the main site of the violence. The rest of the book is about how this event changed their lives and how they attempted to recover. One chapter, a little more than halfway through that ends with a life-altering accident, is so poignant it could stand alone as a short story.

Woven in through Caelum's family history is the fictionalized story of the first jail specifically for women built in the United States. Quirk Correctional Institute, named for Caelum's great-grandmother, who founded the institution, sits in the middle of the family farm where Caelum and Maureen return after the shooting. Lamb deftly combines the political aspects of the fight for such an institution with the personal events of the characters' lives. Descriptions of life in a modern-day prison contrast with the ideals held by Caelum's great-grandmother for a telling picture of today's society. It all combines in a rich, layered story with many parallels.

About two-thirds of the way in, I was afraid it was spinning out of control, however. After the accident in that chapter that is so beautifully written, new characters are introduced who have just fled Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. It gets to be a little much with Columbine and then Katrina--why not throw in 9/11 and the SARS outbreak? (Don't worry, the former gets a couple of passing mentions.) But it comes together again in the last 200 pages, and Lamb's thoughtful afterword gives some context to all the current events in the book. And it really does fit with the book's theme of overcoming evil and destruction. Overall, I highly recommend this book!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Brideshead, The Movie

I watched the recent Brideshead Revisited movie last night. It was pretty faithful to the book, yet different enough to hang together as a movie. It's worth watching for the gorgeous locales alone! Emma Thompson was perfect as Lady Marchmain.

I was a little nervous watching it. Usually, when I really love a book, the movie is nothing but disappointing. There are some I've even refused to see--Snow Falling on Cedars is the one that comes to mind. I think I'm looking forward to the Time Traveler's Wife movie . . . but again, it might only be disappointing.

The reading is still going well, even though my book-finishing momentum has slowed. It's not that I'm not trying--I'm halfway through The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb . . . in all of its 700-page glory. It's a great book so far. It covers the Columbine shootings and some of those scenes are so haunting. I first read Wally Lamb when I got a copy of I Know This Much Is True as part of the studio audience at a book club episode at The Oprah Show. True story!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster

When I started this project, I told myself I'd adhere to a strict 100-page rule: if a book didn't grab me by page 100, I'd ditch it. My friend, a literary agent, convinced me that 50 pages was sufficient--that's the criteria Nancy Pearl (www.nancypearl.com) uses. If it's good enought for Nancy, it's good enough for me.

But, with The Life All Around Me, my second book into this, I broke my rule. I started thinking about ditching it about 80 pages in . . . but since it was only a 200 page book, I figured I was close enough to the end that it had to pick up soon. The first book, Ellen Foster, had been gripping . . . certainly this one would pick up. Although I should have been suspicious since the same publisher didn't publish the sequel . . .

It did pick up around page 100, and then I read the rest of it the same day. But it took that 100 pages to get used to the rhythm of the writing. The author used a strange sentence structure, especially since the narrator is supposed to be a brilliant child prodigy. There were grammatical errors, and I was never sure if it was intentional or not. In either case, it was a mistake. A fifteen-year-old applying for early admission to Harvard (her application letter opens the book) should not make gross grammatical errors.

So, while I would highly recommend Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons, the very first Oprah Book Club selection I ever read, the sequel is skipable.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

I've Got the Horse Right Here

My current gym book (yes, I read on the elliptical. These books go very slowly, since I only read about 20 pages at a time, 3-4 times per week) is The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. It takes place on a horse farm. Most girls go through a "horse period" during childhood, reading books like My Friend Flicka and Black Beauty, perhaps starting a collection of resin horse figurines, and, if they're very lucky, taking riding lessons. I was not one of those girls. I missed the whole phenomenon, although as a young book glutton I'm sure I had copies of both books. A good friend of mine took riding lessons for a year or so, and I used to go to the equestrian center with her to look at the horses. To me, they were just big smelly animals with lots of snot in their noses. Reading this book--about horse shows and riding lessons--feels like a second chance at this rite of passage.

The God of Animals and The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, which I'm also currently reading, are proving to be an interesting pairing. Both are narrated by pre-teen girls, and both girls are severely manipulative. In God, a girl in the narrator's grade in school has drowned. Not particuarly close to the girl except for a shared project in shop class, the girl is exaggerating their friendship to insinuate herself into the drama. In Life, Ellen Foster calls the foster home administrators to have the other two girls in her foster home removed, so she is the only child left with her guardian. Not to say those girls didn't deserve it . . . Since I'm still not very far in either book, it's hard to say what all this manipulation will come to, but it is an interesting commentary on pre-teen girls. I think we all knew at least one of these girls growing up . . . and hopefully it wasn't us!

Both books are considered adult novels. (Adult as in not children's, not XXX.) There was an interesting argument a few years back in one of the publishing world journals about what constitutes a YA novel and what is an adult novel when the narrator is a young adult. This came up around the time of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which sold well in both markets. I think the difference is whether it's a childlike view of the narrator's world, or a view seasoned by adulthood. Both of these books have the latter. There's enough nuance in the narrative that we see the manipulation working its way out in the girls' actions along with hints of the pain the girls are feeling that leads to the manipulation. It'll be interesting to see how each story progresses.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Brideshead Revisited

Book one down, countless to go . . . Brideshead Revisited was not at all what I thought it would be. I have to admit (and it pains my literature major heart to say this) that I was interested in this book because of the movie that came out last fall with Emma Thompson. Judging from the ads for that, I was expecting a novel of manners set in a fancy estate in the English countryside. And while it had some of that, it dealt with much deeper issues than I was expecting . . . religion, adultery, impending war.

Brideshead was much more captivating and a quicker read than I anticipated. Certain elements reminded me of Atonement and The Talented Mr. Ripley--a man becomes enamored with a wealthy and quirky family. I was a little surprised when I opened the book to a picture of the author and discovered that Evelyn was a he. You would think this would have come up in one of my countless literature classes. I guess I never quite hit the 20th century in British lit.

Next I'm going to pick up the sequel to Ellen Foster . . . .

Some observations fro Mr. Waugh:

"For in that city [New York] there is neurosis in the air which the inhabitants mistake for energy."

"Charm is the great English blight. It does not exist outside these damp islands. It spots and kills anything it touches. It kills love; it kills art; I great fear, my dear Charles, it has killed you."

Monday, June 8, 2009

The Project

I have a serious addiction to acquiring books. I also enjoy reading them . . . but somehow I can't read as quickly as I acquire. I work in publishing, so I get a lot of free books. My friends know I love reading, so I receive a lot of books as gifts. Then, just to top it all off, I go out and buy books . . . new books . . . used books . . . and now I have too many books! So, I've decided to read all the unread books in my apartment over the next, well, however long it takes.

I'm not going to pretend that I will stop acquiring new books until I read all the ones I already have. There are too many big books coming out this fall to do that--a new one from Elizabeth Kostova, a new Audrey Niffenegger novel, and yes, the new Dan Brown. But, I've already cut back.

I was just in New York on business (at BookExpo, where I tried to find some free books, but there were very few to be had this year!) and my friend and I went into The Strand. If you've never been, The Strand is the most wonderful bookstore ever. They have everything you could want . . . and everything you never knew existed. Going in, I told my friend not to let me buy anything. She's quite the bookie too, and she's planning on reading War and Peace soon, so she didn't want to buy anyting either. Well, just like a gym buddy, it helps you stick to the program when you have a friend holding you accountable. We both--amazingly--made it through without buying anything. (Of course, I fully endorse buying lots and lots of things from your local independent bookstores!!)

So, if I slow down my acquisitons, and keep myself accountable with this blog, I really thing I can get through all these books! It may even be easier than getting my Michelle Obama arms . . .

The List (in no particular or any way organized order):

Brideshead Revisted, Evelyn Waugh
The God of Animals, Aryn Kyle
Love in the Present Tense, Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County, Tiffany Baker
Fashionably Late, Nadine Dajoani
The Story Girl, L. M. Montgomery
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Red Queen, Margaret Drabble
Madeleine is Sleeping, Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, Kaye Gibbons
Red River, Lalita Tademy
Two Little Girls in Blue, Mary Higgins Clark
The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Noisy Outlaws, Unfriend Blobs, and Some Other Things that Aren's as Scary, McSweeney's/826NY
Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Susan Vreeland
The Shop on Blossom Street, Debbie Macomber
No Place Like Home, Mary Higgins Clark
Spooner, Peter Dexter
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin
Imagined London, Anna Quindlen
Yeah Dave's Guide to Livin' the Moment, David Romanelli
American Wife, Curtis Sittenfeld
Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him, Danielle Ganek
Complete Stories, Dorothy Parker
A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End, Avi
A Crooked Kind of Perfect, Linda Urban
Jack Plank Tells Tales, Natalie Babbitt
Our Lady of the Forest, David Guterson
Harry, Revised, Mark Sarvas
The Bitch Switch, Omarosa
Emma Brown, Clare Boylan
America's Queen, Sarah Bradford
Sweetsmoke, David Fuller
The Grift, Debra Ginsberg
Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fanny & Zooey, J. D. Salinger
Falling in Love with Natasha, Anna Manardo
Flesh and Blood, Michael Cunningham
The Emperor of Ocean Park, Setphan L. Carter
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Graff
Songs for the Missing, Stewart O'Nan
The Book of Unholy Mischief, Elle Newnark
Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, Lauren Henderson
The Road to Yesterday, L. M. Montgomery
Billy Budd, Herman Melville
The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
Howard's End, E. M. Forster
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
Les Liaison Dangereuses, Laclos
The Winter Rose, Jennifer Donnelly
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Petite Anglaise, Catherine Danderson
The Hour I First Believed, Wally Lamb