Book Review: Prayers for Sale

Sandra Dallas is an author I am thrilled to have discovered a few years ago. Alice's Tulips was my first Dallas novel, and I absolutely loved last year's Tallgrass, a story of one girl's experiences in a Japanese-American internment camp. The Diary of Mattie Spenser and New Mercies were also very enjoyable reads. There are a few Sandra Dallas novels I've yet to read; you can check them out here on Sandra's webpage.

I noticed as I was perusing Sandra's website above that novelist Jane Smiley (a former professor of mine at Iowa State University) calls Sandra "a quintessential American voice." That's what I love about Sandra Dallas: she slips in well-researched American history lesson with a really good story. I know, I know: it's a particular grievance to many historians that novels are looked upon by some readers as "history"; however, I maintain that a good novel, with accurate historic details, can often teach history more effectively than a dry textbook.

The history lesson in Prayers for Sale involves an isolated mining community in the mountains of Colorado in the late 1800s until 1936, when the primary story takes place. Hettie, who has lived in is in her late 80s, has lived in Middle Swan most of her life. Nit Spindle is a lonely new bride, who has come with her husband from Kentucky for a job. The two strike up a beautiful friendship. Hettie is a natural storyteller, and Nit is an appreciative listener. Hettie has lots of stories to tell that involve the people in Middle Swan and their history.

One of the things I loved about this novel is that it is so gratifying. If Hettie begins telling a story about someone, she finishes. In the vein of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, the reader gets a solid story of a resident of Middle Swan: his or her past life, what brought him to Middle Swan, and how s/he ended up. I love things all neatly tied up like that.

While telling the stories of the residents of Middle Swan, Hettie reveals to Nit her own life, with its tragedies and joys. For the first time in her adult life, Hettie tells her own story to someone and trusts that Nit will take her place as the storyteller for Middle Swan.

I look forward to seeing what Sandra Dallas will be writing next!

* Thanks to Wiley from @uthors on the Web again for inviting me to review this novel. You may want to out these other blogs for more reviews:
August 24: http://www.fiveminutesforbooks.com
August 25: http://www.abookbloggersdiary.blogspot.com/
August 25: http://www.lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
August 26: http://www.lesasbookcritiques.blogspot.com
August 27: http://www.rebelhousewife.com/
August 28: http://www.stephaniesbooks.blogspot.com/
September 9: http://blog.mawbooks.com/

Book Review: The Count of Monte Cristo

Twelve-hundred and forty-three pages with really small print—and The Penguin Classic unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo was well worth it. Again, I must ask as I did with the classics Things Fall Apart and A Death in the Family, why have I never read this before?

Alexandre Dumas is a master storyteller, and this is an amazing story. Even though this book took me an uncharacteristic 3 weeks to read, it's not because the story wasn't riveting. It's just a really hefty book! The Count is one of those books I thought about a lot during the time I was reading it and couldn't wait to get the kids in bed so I could have my reading time. I lived in the world of wronged Edmund Dantes for three weeks, and I really miss it. This is one of those books that positively captures the reader.

So the story goes that Edmund Dantes, a young sailor who is filled with good will and integrity, is wrongly accused, on the night of his betrothal, by a couple of greedy, jealous men. And although the crown prosecutor believes in his innocence, he condemns Dantes to prison.

And for the rest of the story: read the book. It is truly a masterpiece.

The Sunday Salon: Slowest Month Ever

Books Read and Reviewed in July
Funny in Farsi
People of the Book

The Reason Why
Big Thick Book

And that's pretty much July at SmallWorld Reads.

I have a 14-hour car trip coming up this week (and I will probably only drive a couple of those hours), so surely I will be able to finish the last 700 pages of The Count! But I must reiterate, that while this is a really thick book to get through, it is well worth it.

Book Review: Funny in Farsi

So while searching for books to use for a World Lit class I'm teaching this year, a college friend suggested Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas. Lucky for me, Random House was offering this books as a free download right then, so I got to read it right away. I absolutely loved it.

Funny in Farsi begins when seven-year-old Dumas and her family move from Iran to California. Dumas becomes the cultural and language translator for her parents, as she quickly learns English, and spends the next several years balancing between being American and being Iranian. With humor, Dumas addresses some serious topics: the Iranian hostage crisis, the difficulty of language and cultural barrier, religion, food, and more.

I loved Dumas's voice. She is funny and down-to-earth, but beneath her witticisms there is an obvious ache at the hardships of being an Iranian in America. Having read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis earlier this year, I enjoyed reading a totally different perspective on growing up Iranian. What is barely spoken of in Funny in Farsi is presently starkly in Persepolis. Dumas expresses herself through humor, while Satrapi works through her grim drawings.

I read that ABC is going to be shooting a pilot for Funny in Farsi, and I will definitely try to catch that. Television may ruin the whole thing, of course, but I will definitely be reading her new memoir, Laughing Without an Accent.

The Sunday Salon: Big Thick Book

I was a bit mortified to realize that I haven't reviewed a book in nearly three weeks. I've been having an odd reading summer since I've been concentrating on re-reading classics or reading them anew. For the past week I've been immersed in an unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo. Again, this is one of those books that I can't believe, in all my years of literature courses, that I've never read. I don't remember it ever even being on a reading list! But one of my friends says this is her favorite book and another suggested I have my World Lit students read it, so I finally ordered it.

Now I'm having a hard time putting it down. I am only 200 pages into this 1200-page book, and I was wrapped up in the story from the first page. I need to get some serious reading time in, more than just 30 minutes before falling asleep each night, or I'll be reading this until December!

But today promises to be a gray, rainy day—exactly the kind of day for reading a big, thick book after church. If only I can stay awake.

Book Review: People of the Book

Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders was on my Top 10 list from last year. Absolutely fantastic. She won the Pulitzer with March, which I've not read yet, and she is going strong with her newest, People of the Book.

The novel follows the trail of a 500-year-old Sarajevo Haggadah, going backwards on its journey from wartorn Sarajevo to its creation, in the 1400s. Each section tells the tale of that century's holder of the Haggadah, people of various faiths who risked their reputations and lives to save the precious book from wars, book burnings, and neglect. Each of those sections was interspersed with the story of Hanna, a rare-book expert who is commissioned to restore the manuscript.

Brooks is a superb writer, and the story was fascinating. Each section is a world of its own, and the reader is easily transported to that time period and caught up in that character's story. And with each section, I was left wishing I could read a whole novel about that particular story. I wasn't nearly as entranced by Hanna's contemporary story as I was by the other sections, but it worked well as a whole.

I should have read this book faster, as I did keep losing track of whose story was being told. That has nothing to do with Brooks' writing but a suggestion that you might want to have a clear head when reading this book (i.e., my before-bed reading time did not do this book justice). My only niggling complaint with this book is that its style closely mimics The Girl in Hyacinth Blue (my review here), a lovely novel by Susan Vreeland. The style is so similar that I at first felt gypped, like, "Hey, I've already been here before!" I realize that this is probably a fairly common novel technique (although as a voracious reader, I have to say I've only encountered it in these two novels and in Hitty: Her First Hundred Years) but somehow it bugged me that Brooks used the same pattern as Vreeland. Silly, I know.

Ignore my one little peeve, and read the book.

Sunday Scribblings: Toys

I.

"The Living Doll": It was without a doubt the scariest episode of The Twilight Zone. Talking Tina haunted my childhood in an I-love-to-be-scared kind of way. "My name is Talking Tina, and I'm going to KILL YOU!" my friends and I would shriek and collapse in the curious, delightful mix of hilarity and terror.

II.

My mother says I cried and hid when my grandmother brought me, age 2, the life-sized doll I later named Maria. I don't remember ever being afraid of Maria; I suppose I quickly grew taller than she. Maria was soon joined by a nearly bald baby doll, whom I named Betty Ann after the teenage neighbor who handed down her baby doll to me. And there was always Thumbelina, with the sweet, slightly dirty face and yellow hair.

Decades later my daughter finds Maria and Betty Ann in my mother's attic and brings them home. I dream of Maria that first night. She is life-size—taller than I am—and dancing stiffly. She holds her arms straight out, demanding that I join her dance. I wake up, a scream caught in my throat and heart pounding.

III.

The Japanese doll gave me nightmares. A visiting professor brought her as a gift for me. Beneath her red kimono she was just a purple plastic cross, and her head popped off too easily off its stick neck. But it was her white face that terrified me, and the way her head rolled under the bed so alive. Sleeping, knowing that white head was under my bed, was impossible. But to get out of bed and find her was even more terrifying. She trapped me for a whole night. In the morning my brother fetched her head and stuck it on his finger, chasing me over shining hardwood floors, his socks skating and tiny teeth so white and clean.

More thoughts on "Toys" here at Sunday Scribblings.