I haven't read anything by Amy Tan in a long time (decades?)--since The Kitchen God's Wife and The Joy Luck Club-- and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy her writing style. The story here is narrated by Bibi Chen, a recently deceased woman. She is murdered shortly before she and her friends were to depart on a Christmas excursion to Myanmar, and she follows them as they proceed with their trip. Being dead, she is able to see into their thoughts and motivations, which makes for all kinds of surprises. Without Bibi's leadership, this group of American tourists bumble through Myanmar and are quickly kidnapped by a group of Karen tribesmen. The tourists don't realize they have been kidnapped and believe their "adventure" in the jungle to be a tourist special gone awry. The book is quirky, as are the characters. Tan has a wonderful ability to capture characters without stereotyping. Warning: the book jumps from character to character and requires concentration. I had to flip back several times to remember details about characters, but about midway through I was familiar enough with them to keep them straight.
Amazon.com reviewers didn't rate this book well, but I enjoyed it and will go back and read the Tan novels I've missed in the past 15 years or so.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Book Review: Saving Fish From Drowning
2007: The Year in Books
This has been a marvelous year of reading. So many memorable books (most of them memorable in a good sort of way)! So many pleasant evenings spent in the company of a cast of characters from Afghanistan to Alaska, the past and the future, from the circus to the coal mine. I am reluctant to move on to next year because I fear disappointment. Truly, this year was filled with some of the best books I've ever read.
The Top 10
* The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)
* The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
* Water for Elephants (by Sara Gruen)
* The Thirteenth Tale (Diana Setterfield)
* Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See)
* The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini)
* A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
* Mrs. Mike (Freedman)
* The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
* Crow Lake (by Mary Lawson)
* Night (Elie Wiesel)
Not in the Top Ten, but Enjoyable and I'm Glad I Read Them
* The Endless Steppe (Esther Hautzig)
* Talk to the Hand (Lynn Truss)
* The Nazi Officer's Wife (Edith Hahn Beer)
* The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (by Terry Ryan)
* The Hinterlands (by Robert Morgan)
* Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)
* When Crickets Cry (Charles Martin)
* The Myth of You and Me (Leah Stewart)
* My Sister's Keeper (by Jodi Picoult)
* The Widow of the South (Robert Hicks)
* Ellen Foster (Kaye Gibbons)
* This Rock (by Robert Morgan)
* The Innocent Man (John Grisham)
* Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)
* Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
* I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
* Veil of Roses (Laura Fitzgerald)
* A River Runs Through It (Norman Mcclean)
* Saving Fish from Drowning (Amy Tan)
* We're Just Like You, Only Prettier (Celia Rivenbark)
Classics Re-Read (I don't include these in rankings because they are classics, for Pete's sake)
* The Pearl (John Steinbeck)
* My Antonia (Willa Cather)
* A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
* Ethan Frome (by Edith Wharton)
* The Red Pony (John Steinbeck)
* A Separate Peace (John Knowles)
* The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Biggest Disappointments
(i.e., Books That Came Highly Recommended that made me want to shake someone)
* The Eyre Affair (by Jasper Fforde)
* Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
* Crossing Over: One Woman's Escape from Amish Life (Irene Garrett)
* The Way They Learn (Cynthia Tobias)
And the Entire List Itself* **
(*Books that aren't on any lists above are neither fabulous nor hideous but lie somewhere in the land of mediocrity. In my opinion, of course.)
(**This list does not include the dozens of novels read aloud to the children. Perhaps in the coming year I can be diligent enough to review those, as well. Perhaps. )
1. The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (by Terry Ryan)
2. In My Mother's House (by Elizabeth Winthrop)
3. The Hinterlands (by Robert Morgan)
4. Into Thin Air (Jon Krakauer)
5. Talk to the Hand (Lynn Truss)
6. The Pact (Jodi Picoult)
7. The Time Traveler's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
8. Bathsheba (by Roberta Kells Dorr
9. The Garden at the Edge of Beyond (by Michael Phillips)
10. Crow Lake (by Mary Lawson)
11. Water for Elephants (by Sara Gruen)
12. Arctic Son (by Jean Aspen)
13. Solomon's Song (by Roberta Kells Dorr)
14. The Queen of Sheba (Roberta K. Dorr)
15. New Stories from the South, 2006
16. The Children's Blizzard (by David Laskin)
17. When Crickets Cry (Charles Martin)
18. The Myth of You and Me (Leah Stewart)
19. The Eyre Affair (by Jasper Fforde)
20. My Sister's Keeper (by Jodi Picoult)
21. Jerusalem Vigil (Brock and Bodie Thoene)
22. Crossing Over: One Woman's Escape from Amish Life (Irene Garrett)
23. The Pearl (John Steinbeck)
24. My Antonia (Willa Cather)
25. The Endless Steppe (Esther Hautzig)
26. The Thirteenth Tale (Diana Setterfield)
27. One Thousand White Women (Jim Fergus)
28. This Rock (by Robert Morgan)
29. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
30. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (Lisa See)
31. The Innocent Man (John Grisham)
32. The Kite Runner (by Khaled Hosseini)
33. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
34. Ethan Frome (by Edith Wharton)
35. The Way to Rainy Mountain (by N. Scott Momaday)
36. The Red Pony (John Steinbeck)
37. A Separate Peace (John Knowles)
38. Wrapped in Rain (Charles Martin)
39. The Nazi Officer's Wife (Edith Hahn Beer)
40. A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
41. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
42. The Other Side of the River (Alex Kotlowitz)
43. Alice's Tulips (by Sandra Dallas)
44. The Dead Don't Dance (Charles Martin)
45. Mrs. Mike (Freedman)
46. The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
47. Man and Boy (Tony Parsons)
48. I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)
49. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
50. Between, Georgia (Joshilyn Jackson)
51. Peace Child (Don Richardson)
52. Night (Elie Wiesel)
53. The Diary of Mattie Spenser (Sandra Dallas)
54. Winter Birds (Jamie Langston Turner)
55. The Lighthouse (P.D. James)
56. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
57. Girl with the Pearl Earring (Tracy Chevalier)
58. The Way They Learn (Cynthia Tobias)
59. The Widow of the South (Robert Hicks)
60. New Mercies (Sandra Dallas)
61. Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)
62. Ellen Foster (Kaye Gibbons)
63. How Strong Women Pray (Bonnie St. John)
64. The Glass Castle (Jeannette Walls)
65. Veil of Roses (Laura Fitzgerald)
66. A River Runs Through It (Norman Mcclean)
67. The Lady and the Unicorn (Tracy Chevalier)
68. * Saving Fish from Drowning (Amy Tan)
69. *We're Just Like You, Only Prettier (Celia Rivenbark)
Reviews in Past Years:
Book Review: We're Just Like You, Only Prettier
Hilarious! Subtitled "Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle," this book by Celia Rivenbark had me laughing hysterically. Oh, I recognized so much of this book--and I am assuredly not a Southern belle. Really only the first few chapters are truly reflective of a uniquely Southern culture; the rest of the book can take place anywhere in the country where there are telemarketers, overzealous mothers, and Jiffy Lubes.
The book is a collection of reflections on life, including such chapters as:
* "No, we don't marry our cousins--unless, of course, they got cable";
* "How to be a hands-on parent using field trips, dead butterflies, and beefaroni";
* "Never Saw 'Em Before in My Life: What to say at the wedding reception when hubby's dressed your kid in Batman sweats and Tweety Bird swim socks";
* "Stamp Out Gossip? My Best Friend's Mama's Sister's Hairdresser's Cousin Won't Like This a Bit!"
Those are just a very few selections. One chapter had its funny moments but was sweet and poignant as well: "Mother's Day Memories: Make Mine Macaroni." Rivenbark is of the sandwich generation--having a first child at 40 and also watching her parents age. She writes: "Our time is fleeting and dear. As a good friend explained it, one day it is our mother who is buying us the Chatty Cathy that we begged for; the next, or so it seems, we find ourselves taking a baby doll as a gift to a mother in the nursing home. It has always struck me that women in nursing home beds almost always have baby dolls in their rooms. I suspect it is because they remind them of the happiest time of their lives. I know it is mine."
I can totally relate to Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy, who writes "I laughed so hard reading this book, I began snorting in an unbecoming fashion." I have Rivenbark's books, Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank and Bless Your Heart, Tramp and Other Southern Endearments on my reading list.
Book Review: We're Just Like You, Only Prettier
Hilarious! Subtitled "Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle," this book by Celia Rivenbark had me laughing hysterically. Oh, I recognized so much of this book--and I am assuredly not a Southern belle. Really only the first few chapters are truly reflective of a uniquely Southern culture; the rest of the book can take place anywhere in the country where there are telemarketers, overzealous mothers, and Jiffy Lubes.
The book is a collection of reflections on life, including such chapters as:
* "No, we don't marry our cousins--unless, of course, they got cable";
* "How to be a hands-on parent using field trips, dead butterflies, and beefaroni";
* "Never Saw 'Em Before in My Life: What to say at the wedding reception when hubby's dressed your kid in Batman sweats and Tweety Bird swim socks";
* "Stamp Out Gossip? My Best Friend's Mama's Sister's Hairdresser's Cousin Won't Like This a Bit!"
Those are just a very few selections. One chapter had its funny moments but was sweet and poignant as well: "Mother's Day Memories: Make Mine Macaroni." Rivenbark is of the sandwich generation--having a first child at 40 and also watching her parents age. She writes: "Our time is fleeting and dear. As a good friend explained it, one day it is our mother who is buying us the Chatty Cathy that we begged for; the next, or so it seems, we find ourselves taking a baby doll as a gift to a mother in the nursing home. It has always struck me that women in nursing home beds almost always have baby dolls in their rooms. I suspect it is because they remind them of the happiest time of their lives. I know it is mine."
I can totally relate to Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy, who writes "I laughed so hard reading this book, I began snorting in an unbecoming fashion." I have Rivenbark's books, Stop Dressing Your Six-Year-Old Like a Skank and Bless Your Heart, Tramp and Other Southern Endearments on my reading list.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Book Review: A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
So Sunday after church, I was finally ready--after a weekend packed with performances--to truly nurture my hideous cold. I was going to lie in bed all day, alternating between napping and reading. I despise being sick, but when one can be sick all day because her fabulous husband is taking care of everything, well, it's not really so terrible. Not so terrible, that is, until I discovered that I had about 10 pages left in my current book--and nothing else to read!
Now that is tragedy. I actually considered going to the library, but I was too sick for that trip. And we do have an entire house full of books. (It's times like this that I wish I had the re-reading gene.) So anyway, 1stSon2Dad2Three has been begging me to consider adding A River Runs Through It to our spring reading for American Literature, and we just happened to have a copy, and so I read it.
And I feel as if I need to apologize before I write my review. I realize that this has become known as an American classic, and it's been called the "greatest fishing book ever written." But it just didn't do a whole lot for me. Now let me defend myself a little bit:
* First, I don't get fishing. I grew up on a huge lake in upstate New York, and everyone fished. Everyone except for the people in sailboats, like me. I understand that fishing is its own world, and fly fishing is another world of its own, and all that. But I have this Block up that says, "Fishing. Snore."
* Second, I was sick when I was reading, and so my concentration levels weren't at their best. (But I still won't read this book again, no matter how much you try to convince me that I'm missing out on one of the best pieces of literature ever written.)
This memoir is actually two novellas and a short story. The main one is the story of his family and the bond of fly fishing that drew them into each other's lives again and again. Ultimately, though, it doesn't save them. The other two stories come from Macclean's days working for the forestry service in his late teens and early 20s. I couldn't savor the time and place. Macclean's writing style was a bit too jumbled for me (or was it that cold medicine?). But there were moments of sheer beauty, like this:
"I lay there watching mountains until they made me well. I knew that, when needed, mountains would move for me."
And so, no, 1stSon2Dad2Three, we won't be reading this in class. But not because I personally didn't love it. As I tell my students, you don't have to love a piece of literature for it to be considered a classic. I don't love all the classics by any means, and this happens to be one of them. We won't read it in class simply--and is often the case with 20th century writers-- because there are too many expletives and graphic scenes to which parents would object. Otherwise, we would have read it. I would have enjoyed the challenge.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Book Review: The Lady and the Unicorn
I loved Tracy Chevalier's Girl with the Pearl Earring so much that I right away ordered another Chevalier book from PaperbackSwap. As so often happens, I didn't have the same wonderful experience in my second encounter with an author. Like Girl with the Pearl Earring, The Lady and the Unicorn is based on a famous work(s) of art. In this case, the story centers on the creation of Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, commissioned by the Le Viste family toward the end of the fifteenth century. The tapestries were rediscovered in 1841 in a chateau in France and became much publicized. Chevalier takes what little is known about their creation (including the actual artist himself) and weaves a tale of two families, one noble and one working, and the artist who creates havoc among the women in both houses. The story is intriguing, but somehow I wasn't as captivated by the characters and was frequently lost. This sometimes happens to me when each chapter is told from the point-of-view of a different character. (Sometimes my concentration skills are lacking, especially when I am reading only a chapter each night.) Still, I enjoyed the story. The concept of elaborating on the creation of a piece of art--be it literature, a painting, architecture, etc.--fascinates me, and I will seek out Chevalier's other novels of a similar nature.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Book Review: Veil of Roses
I did enjoy the book; it's just that I always feel a bit emotionally manipulated and cheap when I crave these mostly fluffy beach reads, you know? I think I hear Charlotte Mason whispering, "Twaddle" in my ear....(Yes, I know, she'd have stopped reading my twaddly blog a long time ago.)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Book Review: The Glass Castle
Entertainment Weekly calls this memoir "Nothing short of spectacular"; the back of the book says it is "truly astonishing." Spectacular, astonishing, brilliant, intense, fascinating---I could go on and on. Jeannette Walls today is a regular contributor to MSNBC. She lives in a beautiful home and rubs shoulders with the rich and famous. But for years she avoided speaking about her family, even to her closest friends. Her husband finally got the whole story out of her and urged her to write her memoir. And, wow. What a memoir this is.
Walls's family was incredibly dysfunctional. Her father was brilliant man who embraced learning of all kinds, from physics to history and everything in between. Her mother was a free-spirited artist who believed that children should take care of themselves. Completely. Life for Rex and Rose Mary Walls was all about adventure; life for the four Walls kids was all about survival. Though brilliant, Rex was an alcoholic who constantly lost his jobs and got into trouble with the local law enforcement or the loan sharks. Moving every few months, they lived in absolute dumps or sometimes lived out of their car, if they had one. Occasionally Rex would bring home a few bags of groceries which would be gone in a couple of days. Rose Mary told the kids that food was over-rated and just to look on the bright side of things. Walls' memories of digging through trash cans at school for tossed-out sandwiches would be heartbreaking, except that she tells it all in such a matter-of-fact way.
Ultimately the family heads from the west back to Rex's hometown in West Virginia, where their life rapidly deteriorates. Most folks in the coal-mining town are impoverished, and the Walls are at the absolute bottom of the barrel. Without running water or electricity and usually without food, each family member manages somehow to survive, in spite of being ostracized by the community. The resilience of the four kids is unbelievable, and through absolute grit and determination, they all manage to escape the cycle of poverty and alcoholism.
Jeannette Walls is a powerful storyteller. She does not make judgments about her parents but just tells what happened. One can't help but wish warm baths and clean clothes for all the Walls siblings for the rest of the lives. There are two great websites featuring Jeannette Walls. This one is an interview with her; and this one has a video clip of Walls and her mom today.
Having recently read Into the Wild, I have to say that the contrast between Chris McCandless and Jeannette Walls is striking. McCandless was a rich, privileged kid who goes into the wild and dies. Walls was a dirt-poor, hungry, dirty kid who escaped from the wild and survived. And my admiration goes entirely to Walls.
If you read nothing else this year, please read this book.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Book Review: How Strong Women Pray
Motivational speaker Bonnie St. John has conquered amazing challenges in her life, including having her leg amputated when she was 5 and being horribly abused by her step-father as a little girl. But in spite of her harsh introduction to the world, she won Paralympic medals in skiing, graduated from Harvard, won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and served on the White House National Economic Council.
But St. John's biggest struggles began when she became a mother and gradually remembered her abusive childhood. Forced to deal with decades of memories she'd unburied, St. John found her emotional life unraveling, and she turned, bit by painstaking bit, to God. Prayer came slowly to her, and as she began her own quest to understand prayer, she began to wonder about the prayer life of other women she knew. Who prays? How do they pray? Where and when and why do people pray? Her ponderings became interview questions, and the result is this book that mixes St. John's own life story with snippets of stories of other women's prayer lives. As St. John writes in her introduction, "This book is a spiritual quilt of women's lives you can wrap around yourself."
About two dozen women were interviewed for this book. Some of them spoke powerfully of prayer, like Colette Branch, who packed up 100 severely disabled people and 200 employees and evacuated just a day before Katrina demolished New Orleans--in spite of being laughed at by others who thought she was over-reacting. And Janet Parshall, a radio talk-show host, really stands out as a woman who knows the voice of God through prayer. Unlike many of the women in the book, she writes, "I've gotten over the idea of ritualism in prayer. There's the ABC approach and the method that models the Lord's Prayer. I think it's important to go deeper than the formal prayers that we've been taught. Above all else, He listens to us and He wants to communicate with us."
I think many of the women interviewed for the book are stuck at ritualistic prayer. And some seem to mix up prayer with some kind of transcendental state or as a gimmick. Amy Domini writes that she uses "prayer to get to that place where problems can solve themselves overnight." She says, "I realized...that I could put myself into 'the zone' by praying, and actually lower my heart rate." I don't really get that. It seems more like praying for prizes than spending time with God.
I found myself skimming the stories toward the end because for me, the real meat of the book was Bonnie's own story. I would have been perfectly happy just reading her memoir and her journey into walking closer to God, because she is wonderful. I like her honesty and her moments of realization, like when she realizes during one of her interviews that people actually thrive on coming together and praying together: "Apparently, I was doing it the hard way...I thought I had to do it all by myself. I didn't understand that seeking support in prayer would make me stronger and better as a mother, as a motivator, as a business owner, and as a friend."
This is where St. John starts, as she writes in her introduction: "Conversations about prayer are rare. People can go to church together every day and never talk about how they pray. Husbands and wives can pray separately for a lifetime and never share the experience. Even in a prayer group, most people talk about what they are praying about, not how they actually pray." This statement really jumped out at me because, well, I do have conversations about prayer with my friends. I can't imagine a sermon in which our pastor didn't discuss the power of prayer at some point. It's only been a few months since we completed a women's Bible study about women and prayer. My friends regularly tell me, "I'll be praying for you." And wow. I was struck yet again by the blessedness of my life. Kind of like Dorothy and the red shoes, I've had prayer all my life, surrounding me and protecting me. I forget sometimes that what has been handed down to me by my parents is something that others, like St. John, find only after years of struggling and searching. I am certain that by the time St. John finished this book, she came to a whole new place in her relationship with Christ.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Book Review: Ellen Foster
What took me so long to read this book by Kaye Gibbons? I really have no idea. I went through a Kaye Gibbons reading spree several years ago with A Virtuous Woman, A Cure for Dreams, Charms for the Easy Life, and On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon. I think maybe Ellen Foster had recently been a Hallmark movie when I discovered Gibbons in a collection of short stories by Southern women, and I suppose I gravitated toward her works that were not yet movies. Anyway, last week Kaye Gibbons came to speak at our local college, so we thought it appropriate in our Book Club that we would read Ellen Foster. (Amazingly, none of us had read it already.) Well, we are all hopeless procrastinators and didn't read it before the program, but she was a wonderful speaker anyway.
But I did pick up the book as soon as I got home (and discovered that it had arrived in the mail) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Enjoyed it, that is, as much as you can enjoy the story of a young girl who has, at age 11, experienced nothing but pain, trauma, and heartbreak. It is only when she finally becomes an orphan that she is able to find a family who will truly nurture and care for her. Reading this novel after hearing Gibbons speak was especially enjoyable. I could hear her very distinct Southern drawl narrating, and I could even picture her writing the novel. She told us that she wrote this while literally nursing two babies at a time.
Ellen Foster was definitely not my favorite Gibbons novel, but it is an excellent read along the lines of (but nowhere near as painful as) Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Book Review: Into the Wild
This book by Jon Krakauer has been on my "to read" list for years. Krakauer is an excellent storyteller. Both Under the Banner of Heaven and Into Thin Air are mesmerizing accounts; and, while I didn't find Into the Wild as compelling as the others, it's still fascinating.
The story: Chris McCandless, a recent college graduate from a wealthy family, hitchhikes to Alaska and heads into the wilderness with a bag of rice and little else. Chris takes the name Alexander Supertramp and survives off the land, eating mostly squirrels and other small game. By the end of the summer, Chris is dead. Some Alaskans and wilderness experts claim he was stupid, cocky, and careless; Krakauer seems to believe that he was the victim of a series of unfortunate events.
The question of Into the Wild for me, as the reader, is much the same as Into Thin Air: What makes one risk everything to taste--to embrace--ultimate danger? What is inside a person who needs to be swallowed up in nature--whether by the Everest or by the Alaskan wilderness? Krakauer obviously understands, being a wilderness seeker/conquerer himself, and I appreciate his careful research and painstaking piecing-together of the events and motives that lead one to shed his self and walk into the wild.
The movie is now playing, and now that I've read the book, I am eager to see it.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Book Review: New Mercies
This is my third book by author Sandra Dallas, and I've enjoyed them all (Alice's Tulips and The Diary of Mattie Spenser are the other two). Dallas' novels are quick reads, perfect for in-between heftier works but not light as to be considered, well, fluffy. New Mercies takes place in 1933 in Natchez, Mississippi, where Nora Bondurant is summoned upon learning of her aunt's murder there. In Natchez she uncovers all sorts of juicy family secrets and discovers new ways to deal with her own hurtful past. Many of the characters are stereotypical and the dialogue sometimes borders on silly, but Dallas is great for a good story with a happy ending. And sometimes that's just what we all need.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Book Review: Girl With the Pearl Earring
I have had this book by Tracy Chavelier on my reading list for a long, long time. I've even owned a copy of it, courtesty of Paperback Swap, for months, and I've loaned it out to a few friends. I have no idea why I took so long to get to this, but I'm glad I finally did. I love this kind of novel. Take an artist. Take a painting. Take the subject of the painting, and write their story. This is the story of the Dutch painter Vermeer and how "Girl With the Pearl Earring" came to be painted.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Book Review: The Widow of the South
"All this death and dying. How is it possible to tell the story of one's life entirely with reference to death? It must surely be impossible to describe life in death, and yet I felt then--and fell now--that there is no possible way to tell the story of my life without recounting those morbid years. There is no possible way to tell the story of my farm, my town, my state, this whole ****able Southern Confederacy we were so sure of, without recounting the deaths."
This book by Robert Hicks was our Book Club's pick this month, and I absolutely loved it. The novel is based on the true story of Carrie McGavock, a woman who recovers from her own terrible losses in order to give dignity and a home to soldiers, living and dead. Most of the novel takes place during and after the Battle of Franklin toward the end of the Civil War, in which 9,200 men died in a span of 5 hours. The McGavock home, Carnton Plantation, was taken over by the Confederate Army and turned into a makeshift hospital. Carrie must cast aside her own cloud of mourning to deal with thousands of wounded and dying men, and, in doing so, she recaptures her own life.
"The violence would not end, but I still had my role to play. Someone had to do it, to be that person. I was the woman they wrote the letters to; this house was the last address of the war. Now it was the final resting place of the dead, or at least almost 1,500 of them, and they could not be left alone. I had resolved to be the designated mourner, to be the woman who would remember so others could forget."
The Carnton Plantation is a historic site in Franklin, and I am absolutely adding that to my places to see list. This was an extraordinarily well-written novel--Hicks' first. I hope there will be more.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Book Review: The Way They Learn
I picked this book by Cynthia Tobias up on a whim at the library a couple of weeks ago, thinking that it was one of those often recommended in homeschooling circles that I'd not yet read. Subtitled "How to Discover and Teach to Your Child's Strength," the book begins with several chapters on the Gregorc Model of Mind Styles which put me right back in Abnormal Psych class twenty years ago. I have a switch that automatically shuts off part of my brain when I start reading/hearing abbreviations: AR--abstract random; CR--concrete random; ARC--abstract random concrete; BB-blahblahblahblah. When I have to keep flipping back to see what the abbreviations stand for, I know I am in trouble. I couldn't help but wonder frequently, if this is a book about learning styles, why doesn't Tobias realize that this kind of mass of abbreviations is impossible for some of us to decipher?
She then goes on to talk about kinesthetic, visual, and auditory learners. If you aren't already familiar with learning styles, this section of the book is useful; however, this information is readily found on dozens of websites in a more readable format with more practical applications. I did actually enjoy the section on analytic vs. global perspectives, but I got more from it as an adult dealing with adults than I did as a parent educating my children.
Perhaps I am too concrete random to appreciate this book. Or too abstract random. Or too sequential. Or just too random. (I never could figure out who I am!)
Comments
Thursday, October 18, 2007 - SO GLAD
Posted by onfire (206.132.54.40)
you have no idea how long I have waited for someone reliable to critique this book that has consistently made me feel less educated and more confused.
I know I am big time global, but I thought this book was supposed to be a TOOL, not another coaster.
sheesh
wait until someone reviews MY curriculum ...
Saturday, October 20, 2007 - THANK YOU!!
I could not get my brain around the first half of the book. I felt like I needed to be sitting in a library or something where I couldn't see distractions - -like Dishes. Because there was just too much. I'm sure that's because my brain fits into a category that I didn't understand. *LOL* (Mainly it means I"m sanguine and highly distractible.) So THANK YOU for letting me feel much better that I don't like this book....
Friday, October 12, 2007
Book Review: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I love Huck Finn. On a purely surface level, it's a coming-of-age story--the kind of story that makes every kid want to float down the river in a raft. I was particularly interested, though, in comparing memories of my first reading of Huck Finn over 20 years ago with my most recent reading. What sticks the most in my memory is a wide river, Huck and Jim on a raft, and the never-ending floating. But my reading this time was completely different. For one, the river scenes really aren't the bulk of the book. I didn't even remember the scenes with Jim in captivity or Huck escaping from his father. In my high school lit class, we must have talked primarily about the river--why else would I remember it as such a grand part of the book? Or, perhaps, I just really wanted to float down a river on a raft.
This time around I was terribly appalled at the use of the "N" word. I understand that it was a common term at the time; still, I am uncomfortable with that word appearing a dozen times on each page. I don't remember this from high school, however. Was I less sensitive, or did I just accept an author's literary dialogue as such? When we started reading Huck Finn a few weeks ago, it was Banned Books Week. We had some lively discussion about why books are banned. We all ran up against a brick wall as to why Huck Finn is often banned, although I did cite reasons according to various websites. Still, the only reason we could come up with for ourselves was the use of that word. Would Mark Twain be appalled now? I think probably so.
Mark Twain is a marvelous author. His humor comes out of nowhere. He's the kind of author that makes me say, "Ha! What a genius!" as I'm reading. I feel unworthy, in fact, to teach and review his writing. I wish he were here to explain it all himself.
Book Review: The Lighthouse
I thought I would never get through this book by P.D. James! It's not that the book was terrible. But as I was about a third of the way through this crime/mystery, I remembered I don't really enjoy this genre. A review at Amazon.com says: "Vivid character studies and intricate settings reveal James’s eye for detail—from descriptions of Oliver’s insidious personality and Dalgliesh’s insecurities to an intelligent game of Scrabble." But that's exactly what was missing for me: the "vivd character studies." The characters all seemed flat and stereotypical to me: the silly teenager, the loveless detective, the really bad guy, the housekeeper who knows everything. This is a described as a "page turner": for me, it was a page turner only because I wanted to get to the end so I could start my next book.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Book Review: Winter Birds
Jamie Langston Turner is the author who convinced me that not all Christian fiction is insipid and trite. I read her novel Some Wildflower in My Heart several years ago and was hooked. I'd forgotten about her until Sherry over at Semicolon reviewed Winter Birds, her newest novel. Turner's novels are not easy reading. She is a phenomenal writer, but complex. Every page is full of uncanny insight into the human soul. She rejects the stereotypical characters that so often star in Christian novels and instead presents her characters intimately and realistically. And she is never didactic. Her theology is carefully woven into the story without ever coming close to being preachy. Really, she is amazing.
This particular novel centers on Aunt Sophie, a lonely and bitter old woman who has chosen to live with her nephew and his wife, on whom she will bestow her inheritance. The novel rotates between reflections on Aunt Sophie's life, including her brief marriage, and her present circumstances. As always, Turner provides a satisfactory, redemptive ending.
Like all of Turner's novels, this is not light beach reading. You have to be prepared to concentrate and absorb--but it is well worth the effort.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Book Review: Helen Keller's Teacher
"Teacher, don't talk like that [about your impending death]!" her friend cried out. "You must not leave us. Helen would be nothing without you!"
"Then I would have failed," Annie snapped. For her whole life had been dedicated to making Helen Keller free — free even of Teacher.
I just finished reading this book by Mickie (Margaret) Davidson out loud to Laurel. She could certainly have read it to herself, but I really wanted to share this one with her. I think it was about the 118th time in my life I've read this book about Annie Sullivan, and I still got all choked up. I can think of no other book that I read so often in my childhood. I don't know why this story appealed to me more than the biography of Helen Keller herself, but it was always Annie Sullivan's story that I came back to again and again. The girl with the scratchy eyes and terrible temper, the scenes in the poorhouse, her brother's tubercular hip--all those images were so familiar to me as I read the book to my daughter. And she loved it. I would have been terribly disappointed if she hadn't been enthralled! We have also read Helen Keller's story and watched both the Nest video and The Miracle Worker, but Helen Keller's Teacher is still my favorite.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Book Review: Night
"Night had fallen. That evening, we went to bed early. My father said: 'Sleep peacefully, children. Nothing will happen until the day after tomorrow, Tuesday' ....It was to be the last night spent in our house. ...At nine o'clock...policemen wielding clubs were shouting: 'All Jews outside!'...
That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. The were the first faces of hell and death."
Author Elie Wiesel was 15 when he and his family were taken from their home in Transylvania to Auschwitz and then to Buchenwald. This book is the haunting account of the horror of his life in the camps and struggle for survival as he and his father and millions of Jewish people had their humanity stripped away in a single night. Woven throughout the memoir are Wiesel's battle with the guilt of survival, the unbelievable reality of the attempted annihilation of an entire race of people, and his despair at losing his faith. This is a tremendously powerful book and one that I would absolutely recommend to everyone--so that we never become complacent.