tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45194867591447050202024-02-02T07:09:59.311-08:00Out of My MindReading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real.
― Nora Ephron
Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-46720103931939746542018-06-02T20:27:00.002-07:002018-06-02T20:27:53.748-07:00Mary Doria Russell: Dreamers of the Day: A Novel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">As a heavy reader, I'm not always sure what makes me run to this blog to post about books sometimes and to just read on other times. I'm sure it has something to do with being moved by a read, but there is more to it than that because I read some really enjoyable books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">After finishing Mary Doria Russell's book <i>Dreamers of the Day: A Novel</i>, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I knew I had to write about it here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This author wrote one of my favorite books of all time <i>The Sparrow</i>. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">A book that has kept me awake many a night, both reading and reflecting. The depth and moving language and anthropology and philosophical discussion and character development and settings and before/after and revelations simply overwhelmed me. I read the book several times and it kept revealing and moving me. Listen, I don't gush about books much, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">but <i>The Sparrow</i> deserves all of it! <b>So go and read it!</b> <span style="font-size: x-small;">lol</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYqHxu_q03fS-LFTkQole6uFWT9wDjTCXNfofQauuhhJpFgGW_9DLY-IPNey0iivHpwf4aRMTEjIWk-D5ODFuX6GMMbJR6X0PuJFQGYzTvrtCd783BY7ozapB_RuPGs458t93aRGHg9M/s1600/dreamers6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="130" data-original-width="84" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYqHxu_q03fS-LFTkQole6uFWT9wDjTCXNfofQauuhhJpFgGW_9DLY-IPNey0iivHpwf4aRMTEjIWk-D5ODFuX6GMMbJR6X0PuJFQGYzTvrtCd783BY7ozapB_RuPGs458t93aRGHg9M/s1600/dreamers6.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I began researching some of Russell's other titles and chose to read a historical fiction book called <i>Dreamers of the Day: A Novel</i> and now I know I have to read everything else by her! And I can even partially say why!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">She is a true lover of language, a student of culture, an anthropologist, a skeptic, a polemicist, a contemplative mirror, an appreciator of complexity, a pragmatist, a lover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm going to give this book a little bit of thought and be back soon to say more. Stay tuned.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-11102877793008324862017-12-07T17:41:00.000-08:002017-12-07T17:41:10.167-08:00A Canticle for Leibowitz<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-eYNHPSTnfY1P7jkbjJ4jaY7Za0jKvU4rU-pjc1PEFj-_4qCa0ISgL830c34DfEtoNzA_zBsYljCV2R756RikuOBRPeGnhndfR48aaOevl0yPhdZrCDFYr03qCCVcel_Tw0iXgAkoC0/s1600/canticle7.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="333" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-eYNHPSTnfY1P7jkbjJ4jaY7Za0jKvU4rU-pjc1PEFj-_4qCa0ISgL830c34DfEtoNzA_zBsYljCV2R756RikuOBRPeGnhndfR48aaOevl0yPhdZrCDFYr03qCCVcel_Tw0iXgAkoC0/s400/canticle7.png" width="296" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">I've got a good one for you.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> by Walter M. Miller, Jr. is a real treat for the grey matter. If you're looking for book to really sink your teeth into, this book might be next for you, ahead of all of those other books on the pile next to your bed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written in 1961, <i>Canticle</i> is shockingly current and provocative. Let me tell you a bit about the story. It is starts out set a few hundred years after our current day politicians did the unthinkable: unleashed an apocalypse of nuclear weapons that decimated most of the population of the plane, an event now known as <i>The Conflict.</i> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The survivors in the bleakness of the 26th century were <span style="font-size: small;">(will be?)</span> pissed. At the scientists.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was the scientists and thinkers who created the bombs that made the devastation possible at the time of the nuclear holocaust. So for hundreds of years, generations upon generations of people burned and destroyed every single book, paper, written document, and every stored record of knowledge. They call this <i>The Simplification</i>. Everyone is illiterate. Everything scientific is deliberately expunged except for those rare, undiscovered bits of flotsam paper. Many people are physically deformed from the high levels of radiation. Somewhere in Utah t</span><span style="font-size: large;">he monks who live at the monastery are devoted to honoring the memory
of Isaac Edward Leibowitz, a Jewish scientist at Los Alamos who was
martyred for his efforts to safeguard scientific knowledge in the
aftermath of the conflict. They collect and transcribe the “Leibowitz
Memorabilia,” including shopping lists, technical documents, and circuit
diagrams that they cannot even begin to understand.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKupUzu8RO9BPt2j2w1naBUT6hbezwTkbBdu3JZWFSeTf0u_SNGn-s3iiBYuHHL6YXcj46fcLwSyY3faTrbH74yFPfi1qmmYjeIFkLuG2tZZlM-HXR9MNsAmfOeROFF-UMshZL1VJjX-M/s1600/canticle5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="338" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKupUzu8RO9BPt2j2w1naBUT6hbezwTkbBdu3JZWFSeTf0u_SNGn-s3iiBYuHHL6YXcj46fcLwSyY3faTrbH74yFPfi1qmmYjeIFkLuG2tZZlM-HXR9MNsAmfOeROFF-UMshZL1VJjX-M/s200/canticle5.jpg" width="168" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">The monks secret away </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz for centuries, occasionally attempting to fill in the blanks on some missing words or phrases, studying the words and phrases, often memorizing texts in case there is another burning of paper. All of the protected pages are kept in total secrecy as all knowledge is suspect.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">Although this Dark Ages replica time period is bleak and...well, dark, the continuation of the Catholic church is interesting. The church is fairly barbaric and, somehow, funny. Always there are people attempting to do the right thing for the right reasons and discovering that religious dogma and the institution of the church will always find ways to undermine one's humanity. Humans are a weak species. Many people are born with unusual deformities and these deformities become quite normal to see among the sparsely-populated towns and villages.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">As the centuries pass and knowledge is slowly being rediscovered, we observe three distinct periods of time in <i>Canticle</i>, time periods that might be akin to Medieval times, a Renaissance time, and a Scientific time. Time periods where the human race progresses through rediscovery of technology and knowledge so very deliberately destroyed in centuries prior. Centuries where the darkness of ignorance slowly dies to the light of knowledge.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">About eighteen centuries pass in the book! Each new epoch of time brings about greater and greater scientific discoveries by mankind and new challenges to the Abbey of St. Leibowicz that seeks to protect the knowledge that is archived there in the Utah cloister. The development of political climate, the evolution of Catholicism, and the development of technology plays an active character in this novel and definitely kept me turning the pages. Superstition and ignorance is generally celebrated during times of fear and anger while technology begins to appear during times of plenty.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">Again, in the final epoch mentioned in the book, the human race is again on the edge of nuclear Armageddon. </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">It is the year 3781 and civilization has not only recovered but has
developed beyond the level it was at in the mid-twentieth century.
Nation-states once again have nuclear arsenals. Space travel between
earth and distant colonies has become common.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">A war is threatening. Will we have learned from our past? Can we humans avoid repeating our appalling and flagrant mistakes of the past? Only the bicephalic woman with the lolling tomato-like second head knows as The Tomater Woman knows for sure.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">~~~~~~~~</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">There were times I literally laughed out loud because this book is surprisingly funny and times I had to shake my head at the ridiculous rules and human foibles of both the church and of the people in power. I find it amazing that a book written in 1961 could be so very modern, thought-provoking, humorous, and fresh. I've not traditionally been a scifi reader, though I have devoured several excellent scifi books within the last year or so. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">This book? T</span><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">his book I recommend. You might lose your interest a bit in the beginning, but stick with it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText10910441792609982242">I give it an honorable eight stars.</span></span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-33632718001049597032017-10-17T20:24:00.003-07:002017-10-17T20:24:26.352-07:00The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Are you into Sci fi?<br />I'm just now getting in to it as an older adult. My husband turned me on to a few titles within the past 25 years but lately I've been finding my own titles.</span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i> The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet</i></span> by Becky Chambers is my newest find and I'm loving it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What we seem to have here is a book that is populated by many different species interacting. But it's not the species that are interesting. It's the interactions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm only about a third of the way into the story, though I can see a major journey coming up for a crew of eight<span style="font-size: small;">?</span> sentient beings on a ship called the <i>Wayfarer</i>. Some background has been setting me up to appreciate the <i>normalcy</i> of these various races working together, yet I find myself wanting to know more <span style="color: #999999;">more</span> <span style="color: #eeeeee;">more</span> about how things got to be the way they are; from the few summaries I have read about this book, I know I'm going to get my wish. Seems the journey they are embarking on will fill my need for character development. So far it feels <i>a bit</i> like <i>Firefly</i>... 🙂</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">SO looking forward to reading more!<br />Be back soon with more.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-82484552171707332902017-09-26T00:06:00.002-07:002017-09-26T00:12:27.753-07:00The Color of Our Sky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9jSqqYrZ9AZYfznpfF77VlUfvzeC9gGFNQUe0STgDO4SmRwpsSSIpYkDhq3TMYWTY2kLtabDT-J__lKW32kDDonvOBnskWFeVwHOjKFAJfqdRx56reW6249xcV8A4CJm7lnCf3exmyA/s1600/the+color+of+our+skiy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="332" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht9jSqqYrZ9AZYfznpfF77VlUfvzeC9gGFNQUe0STgDO4SmRwpsSSIpYkDhq3TMYWTY2kLtabDT-J__lKW32kDDonvOBnskWFeVwHOjKFAJfqdRx56reW6249xcV8A4CJm7lnCf3exmyA/s320/the+color+of+our+skiy.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Who knows what makes us pick up one book over another. Is it the cover? The reviews? The title? Even while I am searching for a book I find myself wondering just what it is that grabs me or collects me or whispers to me. I know that there is an elusive something, a thing that I look for...vulnerability? Delicacy? Strength? Bravery? Humanity? Some combination of all of none of these?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In this case I must own that I was searching my eReader shop for cheap books. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Color-Our-Sky-Novel/dp/0062474073/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506408275&sr=8-1&keywords=the+color+of+our+sky">This one</a> cost me $1.99.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Color of Our Sky</i> by AmitaTrasi.<br />I am a lover of all things Hindustani, I am in love with India in all of it's facets, but that's just a part of what attracted me to this story. It is a story of two friends from very different places in life. The combination of lyricism and starkness, of boldness and sacrifice, of innocence and innocence lost, of rustic India and modern America, I have followed the back and forth motion like a heartbeat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The reader will learn more about the caste system in India and about the roles that women play. How much of these roles are choice and how many of the journeys are unavoidable. How significant is the need for <i>learning to read</i> to these girls? How can that ability change a life? Who can guess at the strengths and weaknesses of the adults, parents, caregivers who are in the position to care for us as children? At what point must the children recognize their own powerlessness, even at moments where they seem to make a choice? Is there redemption?<br /><br />Such an interesting, rich, pregnant moment in time...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As for the author of this book, Amitra Trasi, this is her first novel and I, for one, will be waiting for the next.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am at just about the half way point and I have been shocked and surprised and moved in so many ways; I have discovered that I am a poor predictor of story for I have been completely wrong as most of my early guesses. I am savoring as much as possible...so far I am spellbound...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'll be back soon.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-32990187383743196272017-06-22T00:00:00.002-07:002017-06-22T00:00:45.911-07:00Georgiana Darcy's Diary by Anna Elliott and Laura Masselos<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I didn't know it, but it looks like we have Anna Elliott to thank for bringing the Darcys and the Bennetts back to the stacks. I'm so out of it because I had no idea about this series of books and the first volume was published in 2014. Elliott has three volumes of P&P Lovers' books out there that take us back to 1814 Pemberley...exactly where we want to be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Big sister-in-law and new BFF Elizabeth is there. Our darling and lovable older brother Fitzwilliam is there and he is happy! Our beloved cousin and guardian Colonel Edward Fitzwilliam is there. We're beginning to appreciate Carolyn Bingley a bit, enough to wish a happy ending for her. Even our cousin Miss Anne DeBourgh is growing on us. It's good. It's right where we want to be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though I'm still reading the novel I know one thing: Anne Elliott loves <i>Pride and Prejudice</i> as much as I do. She <i>knows</i> the characters as well as I do. She's imagined Pemberley as often as I have. And Anne Elliott has taken these beloved characters and has grown them, not as Jane Austin might have done, but as a very good fan fiction writer might do. And we can enjoy that for what it is. Who wouldn't appreciate the moment when Elizabeth Darcy offers to take Lady Catherine DuBourgh to another part of the house to talk about putting shelves into an errant closet?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know if non-Austin-Lovers would appreciate the many beloved features of the book, the repurposed phraseology, the familiar set ups, or even the continuation of sweet dialogue. Maybe the book would be a bit below-standard. Probably some readers might be unimpressed with the journal entries of Georgianna Anna Darcy but I enjoyed getting to know her better. I can honestly not judge in the way of a non-Austinite because I have swallowed P&P whole and I have savored it for many years. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If you are an Austin Lover, you will likely enjoy this book for its easy read, it's feeling of <i>being home</i>. You will enjoy the surprise of Carolyn Bingley's story line, maybe even enough to forgive her rudeness and condescension to Elizabeth Bennett in the original. If you loved Austin you will probably forgive the few out-of-time anachronisms. And if you love Austin you will probably agree with my rating of seven stars, taking away three stars simply because that's about as high as fan fic can rate.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-36734983748572379862017-06-07T02:51:00.002-07:002017-06-07T02:51:46.163-07:00Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #660000;">Just FYI, I couldn't and didn't read all of <i>Poldark</i>. Too much of a yawner. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #660000;">My friend loved it so much but I simply could not read another word. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #660000;">Maybe I'll pick it up again at some later date.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I don't know how it is that I have never read <i>Jane Eyre</i> before. It seems like one of those books that I would have devoured in my youth, yet I did not. This 500-page book caught me and held me, though the language was heavy and dense and Gothic. I can honestly say that it took me about two weeks to read the entire book...and that's saying something. Some of the language was incredibly ponderous; I'll bet I looked up 100 words that I did not know!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So what kept me reading if it was such a challenge?<br />It was Jane!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">What a surprising character for the time period. At a time when female protagonists were fainting all over the place, Jane Eyre never so much as blanches at the many, many challenges that her sparse life presents to her. As a reader of many a Gothic novel, I found her rebellion as a child inspired and unexpected and surprisingly modern. In the dark and cold of her childhood in the orphanage of your nightmares, our Jane manages to actually develop and grow a sense of <i>self</i> that surprised me, Dear Reader. <i>(I'll be referring to you, the reader, several times in this blog post because Jane frequently urges you, Dear Reader, to understand her points of view and choices.)</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the earliest chapters Jane is raised by an unloving and harsh aunt who has no affection or time for this small wisp of a girl. Jane is forever being misunderstood, blamed, and punished in this family of bullying and selfish cousins. Jane's aunt continually refers to Jane in such undeserved terms as <i>deceitful</i> and <i>untrustworthy</i>. Our hearts break as, again and again, in her efforts to win her aunt, little Jane is brushed aside or punished or even tortured in a scary, <i>death-haunted</i> room. When circumstances change and Jane is passed along to a boarding school/orphanage our hopes, Dear Reader, are high that someone will claim Jane and give her the love and affection that she is so desperate for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Alas that charity orphanage offers an indifferent set of authority figures and a harsh reality for this young heroine. Jane and the other girls are subject to such nightmarish circumstances that I found myself completely hating England for about a week and mocking England for its false reputation of being cultured. Here Jane endures painful losses and continued deprivation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Finally a welcome change when Jane chooses to leave the school and to seek a position as a governess for a child at Thornfield Hall. She is hired by a household with a child named Adèle Varens, a young French girl. Jane finds a home, a welcoming group of people, and a meaningful purpose for her life for the very first time. We are delighted as she learns better and better ways to interact with Adèle. Jane learns about herself and asserts her own sense of identity under this roof. I'm not at all sure why this section of the book moved me so much, but it did. I'm sure it had something to do with her resilience and her hope.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is at Thornfield Hall that Jane meets Mr. Rochester for he is the guardian of </span><span style="font-size: large;">Adèle. Jane seeks to understand the confusing social life of Mr. Rochester as well as the many events in the house that seem to be strange, mysterious, and secretive. But none of the mysteries of the house can stop her from maturing and falling in love with the enigmatic and unusual Mr. Rochester.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I won't report anymore on the story line, only to say that it worth the slogging. The purity of Jane's voice and her search for identity, usefulness, and maybe integrity are quite refreshing and engaging. Because of the difficult language and writing style I'm sure the read is well wasted on most high school students who are required to read it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was news to me that a movie has recently been made based on the book. Can it hold up? Can Jane come across as likable and engaging when we don't read her autobiographical musings ourselves? How will we feel about the other characters? I have no idea. As for the book, I give it a strong eight stars.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-30528186794821616932017-05-15T04:29:00.002-07:002017-05-15T04:32:26.051-07:00Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787 (The Poldark Saga)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Aidan Turner notwithstanding, I've never read the book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Somewhere on Netflix or Amazon Prime I stumbled onto the Poldark series. I was caught by the look of Aidan Turner but kept by the surprisingly engaging, unexpectedly beautiful, and continuously intriguing story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Written by Winston Graham in the 1940s and 1950s, the first book of Poldark series, entitled</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="a-size-large" id="productTitle"> <i>Ross Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall, 1783-1787 (The Poldark Saga), </i></span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;">has the flavor and feel of Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, or Elizabeth Gaskell. Set in the 1780s and 1790s, the series follows war-weary Ross Poldark as he returns from fighting in the Colonies, a war that the English lost. What interesting reversal of paradigm, reading an English novel set in that miserable time period. Wars were being lost, land was losing value, the mines in the area of Cornwall were not producing, food and living was extremely costly, and people were living scrub existences. What an odd time to set a romance novel/drama.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yet, Ross Poldark does return to his family's land, finding decrepitude and gin-swilling servants, and begins to rebuild and renew his life. Not only does Ross deal with his own physical struggles and the struggles of managing the estate, he immediately discovers that the woman he has loved for these many years is set to marry his cousin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And now we are set for the first book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am nearing the middle of the first book and I've discovered that the book is worthy of blogging about. For not only is Ross Poldark a worthy character, he and his fellow characters are all drawn so humanly, so heart warmingly, I am undone. And I am undone completely without the need to imagine Ross Poldark as played by Aidan Turner...and that is saying something. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now that I'm half way in, I am finding the writing engaging as hell and if Cornwall is even half as beautiful as Winston Graham writes it, I want to see it. For Cornwall itself is a character in this book. Cornwall's environs and its peoples of the 1780s are sharply and finely drawn; in their misery and celebration, they are by turn hilarious, petty, unworthy, worthy, filthy, lice-ridden, pompous, loyal, disloyal, unlearned, noble... Normal and regular folk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It remains to be seen if I will read beyond this first book into the series. So far I have highlighted several passages that either use language that has moved me or has cracked me up. I'll let you know more when I've finished the book. Back in a day or two...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, now I know where Penzance is. <span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: small;">LOL </span></span></span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-42787954547966866302017-03-12T21:08:00.000-07:002018-11-05T13:25:44.067-08:00Room by Emma Donohue<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I had a little time last night so I started reading <i>Room</i> by Emma Donohue (author of a recent book I read <i>I Wonder</i>); the next thing I knew it was 5am and the sun was coming up. Little did I know I had picked up a book that has become a phenomenon. It was made into a movie in 2015.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Undoubtedly one of the most harrowing stories I've read in awhile, <i>Room</i> is a fictionalized story based on several notorious accounts of people taking young girls prisoner and keeping them locked up for many years, raping and abusing them, siring children with them, and keeping their horrific secrets, sometimes for decades.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Room</i> is given yet another layer of distress by being told from the voice of Jack the five-year-old son of the kidnapped woman, born into the horrific man-made prison and raised in the enclosed space, never knowing anything at all about outdoors. Not knowing that anything at all exists outside of the room, their entire world. From Jack's perspective his life is lovely, secure, idyllic, and spent entirely with his beloved Ma while from his mother's perspective she is living in torture, neglect, rape, victimization, and abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jack's mother cycles through extreme depression and remarkably resiliency and exceptionally creative parenting over the years of her captivity. One cannot help but be in awe of her fortitude and fierce love and protection for her son. While Jack lives day to day to day within the small world of Room. Jack is a highly inquisitive little boy and his mother struggles with being honest about the world at large and with the reality that he may never know or see the world beyond Room. She is forced to choose what she will keep from him; he comes to believe that all of the things he sees on TV are pretend and not real, including other people, weather, nature, even the planet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jack's ever-growing curiosities bring confusion to him as he struggles to understand the facts as Ma has presented them and all new information she gives him in his natural questioning and energy. He is such a beloved little boy; every parent can relate to his guileless inquisitiveness. He is lovable, well-meaning... protected from the horrific reality of their circumstances. In Room, Jack and his mother are barely individual. At one point he muses </span><span style="font-size: large;">"Maybe I’m a human," he thinks, "but I’m a me-and-Ma as well." The psychological damage to both Jack and his mother is an ever-growing sea of inevitability... </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I hate to give away too much of the plot but I must relate that a certain point the two are released from their captivity. What follows is a two-fold path of recovery from the harrowing abuse and imprisonment experience and an abrupt expulsion from a sanctuary or haven at the same time. One must almost refer to the dual story lines as masterful. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While I didn't understand the lack of compassion in family, nor did I understand some of Jack's mother's major choices in the life after Room, </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I did appreciate the continual discovery and confusion and dissonance experienced by Jack in Outside. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's not every day that a book moves me, disturbs me, disquiets me this much. I found myself doing several hours of research and reading after completing the book...leaving me even more sore and bruised. I honestly can't decide if I will read Elizabeth Smart's memoir <i>My Story</i>...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">For the innovative, non-gimmicky use of the five-year old's voice, for the moving telling of two points of view in one terrifying story, for keeping my heart in my throat through the night, I give this book ten stars, minus three because I wanted to know so much more about Jack's mother and so much less about Jack's grandparents. That's seven stars from me.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-70951544742037207822017-02-18T01:35:00.000-08:002018-11-05T13:26:55.446-08:00Vincent Czyz's The Christos Mosaic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Vincent Czyz, author of this book, has written three books that I know of and from the reviews of his other books his writing has been well-received. I, however, am not in love with this book. I'm willing to own my own boredom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">In a world where so much is being written and revealed to the general population about church history, this book seems a bit underwhelming to me. The revelatory content could have been drawn more fully while also being repeated far less. It was as though the author didn't think the reader could follow. It was repetitive. Said again and again. Repeated <i>ad nauseum</i>. Suggested that the reader needed to read revelations again. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">And again. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Allow me a moment to offer quick reminder about the premise of <i>The Christos Mosaic</i>: Drew, an American, is involved in the recovery of a newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll. Not surprisingly the scroll contains source and historical information that overturns everything that the Christian church puts forth as church doctrine and upon which that church has built its stories upon which the church rests. The church is seeking to keep the scroll from becoming public. Drew, a man with deeply-held Christian beliefs again and again <span style="color: #666666;">and again</span> <span style="color: #999999;">and again <span style="font-size: small;">and again</span></span> in the book has to reconsider information about the beloved institution of his faith that he thought was fact. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I won't tell you what the scroll reveals but I will tell you that the story and its intrigue <i>could</i> have been better. I found it tedious. Someone new to reading about early church history might truly enjoy the wealth of research material to follow but I found much of it redundant to materials I have read in the past. Therefore I must conclude that it is the writing that is at fault in this read. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #660000;">_____________________</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">While I didn't love the book I did love its setting, mostly in Instabul. At the moment I am watching some Turkish dramas available on Netflix and I have enjoyed learning about the area and the history. I find it amazing that we here in The West never really learn about or appreciate the significance of Turkey and that entire Black Sea area. It is such a crossroads of culture. In its time Istanbul and the Muslims have attained vast power and vast riches. But we seldom learn about this part of the globe and its people without negative connotations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I give this book three stars for one really good supporting character.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-28252801884665818852017-02-05T01:46:00.000-08:002017-02-05T01:46:26.064-08:00The Christos Mosaic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is one of those books that seems like I'd be bound to read sooner or later: <i>The Christos Mosaic</i> by Vincent Czyz. I hadn't heard about the book until about a week or two ago, though it has been out for about five months. I have also never heard of the author Vincent Czyz.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've read about half of the book at this point and I'm slightly underwhelmed. I have to prod myself to read more, hoping that the intrigue builds or someone dies or <i>something </i>happens to keep my interest. <i>The Christos Mosaic</i>, at this point feels very derivative, and not in a good way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of my favorite reads ever was <i>The DaVinci Code</i> by Dan Brown and if you haven't read The<i> DaVinci Code</i> but rather watched the lame movie, then RUN, no not walk, out to buy yourself a copy at the nearest yard sale. That book was AMAZING. <i>The DaVinci Code</i> offered high quality intrigue from page one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Christos Mosaic</i> has been compared to <i>The DaVinci Code</i>, though I'm not at all sure why, except for the concept. Secret knowledge, esoteric documents and wisdom, churchy conspiracy thugs, secret groups and gangstas...it all seems familiar. I do hope that there is more offered by Vincent because at this point I'm just not intrigued.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">How to summarize...</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I know you have some familiarity with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Well, our hero in this book Drew has somehow become embroiled in a series of hijinx as he inherits a newly-discovered scroll that is being sought after by treasure hunters of antiquities, unethical scholars, and unscrupulous buddies. As Drew races to understand the Christinity-changing secrets that the scroll reveals, he and his gang of Turkish partners-in-crime are being pursued by nefarious agents who are trying to prevent the information from the scroll being revealed and who have killed and are willing to kill again to keep the information in the scrolls secret. The scramble takes the gang across Egypt and Turkey as they seek information and trustworthy partners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While this all sounds pretty exciting I just find myself kind of bored. Perhaps I am not moved by poor Drew's crisis of faith as he begins to piece together what he is learning from and about the scrolls and the early Christian church because while it is obvious that our Hero of a Thousand Faces is on a journey, most of it is of the intellectual variety and, I fear, kind of pathetic. Perhaps the revelations simply don't surprise me. Perhaps I'm spoiled by Dan Brown's far better writing. And perhaps my overall antipathy toward Drew and his merry gang of fellows plays a part in my lukewarm following of this book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But I'm going to continue reading with the hope that things will improve. One thing I do seriously enjoy is the accompanying research that I get to do as I read, so I'm learning about some things right along with Drew.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-4318952021671390442017-02-01T00:23:00.002-08:002018-11-05T13:31:43.986-08:00Andrew Sean Greer's The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">It took me several days to read through <br /><b>The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells</b> by Andrew Sean Greer. Partially because I was reading slower, partially because I was savoring it. Now this is a book with some surprising time travel, so allow me to set the stage:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><br /></span><span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><span style="color: #660000;">The book starts out with our first and our <i>real</i> Greta Wells living in 1985.
In 1985, Greta's beloved twin brother Felix d<span style="color: black;"><i>i</i></span>es of complications from AIDS. Greta is devastated. This major loss is then complicated by the break up with her long-time partner
Nathan. Greta Wells becomes severely depressed and chooses a fairly radical psychiatric treatment to
alleviate her debilitating depression. The treatment, though, has unexpected and bizarre
effects when Greta finds herself whisked to previous lives she might have
had if she'd been born in a different era. It might be enough to know that those Gretas are also submitting to some form of ECT, electroconvulsive therapy, shock treatments, in those lives as well...<br /><br />During the months of
her treatment Greta cycles between her own time in 1985, another alternate life
in 1918, where she is having an affair with Nathan and where her brother Felix is alive and well, though struggling with his identity, and a life in 1941 where Greta is married to Nathan and mother to their son. Separated by odd time and interesting changes in social mores, Greta's three lives populated with the same people, albeit achingly different relationships.
In each time period Greta finds herself longing for those people she has lost in 1985, though the prices of those realities might be too high to bear.</span> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">Who hasn't wondered the <i>what ifs</i> of life? What if I hadn't lost that person in my life? What if that relationship had continued? What if I had the power to know the future? How does my life affect those around me? Can I be happier with other choices? What would I give up to have back those whom I have lost? What could life be like if I had what I thought I wanted?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">Have you ever wondered what life was like generations ago? Greta gets to walk through her own apartment, on her own street, through her beloved neighborhood in New York City in three different eras. Enjoying the prosaic events from one life: walking down the street, dressing, preparing a meal, hearing the news, responding to community events. Moving with Greta through 1917 and 1941 was a delight because Andrew Sean Greer so obviously delighted in his research. He so obviously enjoyed creating Greta's home and neighborhood of the past and for that I thank him. What a surprising thing to say, hey? But the flotsam of one life can be simply magical when seen through the eyes of someone from another time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">I didn't expect this book and I think I can highly recommend it...</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">And now for my favorite part of any review: I have two favorite excerpts from <i>The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells</i>, though Greer's writing is quite lovely to read I could have included dozens of pieces. See if you don't love these pieces as much as I do:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"> </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><i>Our heart is so elastic that it can contract to a pinpoint, allowing our hours of work and tedium, but expand almost infinitely - filling us like a balloon - for the single hour we wait for a lover to awaken.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">and</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><i>It's easy to say something is all in your head. It's like saying sunset is all in your eyes.</i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965"><i> </i>One last thought about a secondary character, Greta's Aunt Ruth. This character provides another complex relationship for Greta to transit, yet Aunt Ruth's presence is a wonderful touchstone for the reader. In each of her lives, Aunt Ruth is Greta's beloved yardstick of reality. Aunt Ruth offers Greta both continuity and comparison. Her flaky, consistent, even bohemian lifestyle couches Greta in each life and helps her to process many of life's lessons...for the most part. I had a wonderful seasoned actress in mind any time Aunt Ruth appeared on the page and she made me smile, often.<i><br /></i></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="freeText16701111660228386965">So enjoy the luscious prose. <br />I give this surprising read a nice rating of six stars.</span></span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-87464150510875913192017-01-26T11:41:00.003-08:002017-01-26T11:41:41.672-08:00The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Did I discover this author?!<br />This book is <b>The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells</b> by Andrew Sean Greer. Have you heard of Greer? I <i>miiight</i> be the first to read him...therefore I have discovered him. <span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;">*wink*</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So the story is this.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Greta Wells, in 1985, has experienced two devastating losses and is in a long-term depression. In a desperate attempt to improve her mood Greta begins undergoing ECT, Electroconvulsive Therapy, shock therapy. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Kind of a grim beginning, but wait. This is a time travel novel. In a twist of fate, Greta Wells in 1918 <i>and</i> Greta Wells in 1941 are <i>also</i> beginning EST, called Electroshock therapy in 1941, and let the time travel begin. Each time these multiple Gretas undergo treatment they move to another Greta timeline.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Greta from 1985, after her first treatment, wakes up in 1918, in the surprising life of Greta Wells in 1918. The difference in this Jazz Age Greta time line is that 1918 Greta is <i>married</i> to the boyfriend who just left 1985 Greta and Greta's twin brother Felix who just died in 1985 from AIDS is married to a woman in 1918. Of course the differences don't stop there but I don't want to give away too many points of the storyline. Let's not forget the crinolined Greta in 1941. SUCH a fun set of revelations as this 1941 Greta enjoys the pre-Feminist days of 1945 women... Discovering the new lives is quite delightful and interesting and, yes, kind of romantic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also present in these parallel lives is Greta's delightful and beloved Aunt Ruth as well as key secondary characters. I'm making it sound like all of her discoveries from her other lives are wonderful, but of course that would not be realistic. Be prepared for struggling and processing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As Greta moves through a series of ECT treatments over several months she finds herself shuffling through 1918, 1941, and 1985. An interesting part of the move is that the Greta from each of those lives has moved to her 1985 self like a place keeper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Still with me? OK.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am over half way through this book and I find myself thinking that the writing is wonderful. Greer truly has a beautiful, sensory way with words. In preparation for this blog post this morning I read ONE review on Amazon by lynn-sb and lynn-sb's review absolutely praises Andrew Sean Greer's ability to write from the perspective as a woman in all of these relationships, including discovering that she is a parent in 1918 Greta's life. But I have to disagree with that reviewer's opinion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While I have nothing but praises so far with this book, praises I tell you, I disagree that Greer is writing well as a woman. About half way through the first half of the book I realized that the Gretas weren't quite developed enough for me...not enough <i>female. </i>Female stuff is just...missing. (What do I mean by <i>female stuff</i>? I mean, Um, ...stuff.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's wonderful and well-written and I've already purchases another book by the guy...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Back with more after I finish the read.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-69296880802447577582016-12-21T22:50:00.001-08:002018-11-05T13:32:49.272-08:00Bless the Beasts & Children<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">How is it that we don't hear about this book anymore? Do teachers still teach it? I hope so because it is a wealth, I tell you. And I was fortunate enough to read an e-edition with a wonderful postscript written by the author's son Mitch Swarthout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Bless the Beasts & Children</i> is real treasure of social conscience and coming-of-age. I read it for the first time in the sixth grade, along with that cultural phenomenon <i>Born Free</i>...I was so moved by the plight of wild animals and how oddly barbaric and violent our species can be toward them. Just give a human a few flimsy justifications and they will be off in the wild with plans to kill an unsuspecting animal. Not fair and not the coming-of-age story that they deserve.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have come to a realization that I have never liked the coming-of-age story. I thought <i>A Separate Peace</i> was like a long, slow thumb screw; the cover of Swarthout's book seems to compare this book to that book. But no. Nor is it a bit like <i>Lord of the Flies</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I related to this book a bit tonight because I know that I was a total dink when I was young. <i>Dink</i>. The term used by the kids in this book for a total loser. The plot of this book might read something like this: Six misfit teens come together at a summer camp and form a bond as the emotionally-messed-up outcast cabin. Together they embark on an adventure to ...should I say? Anyway, they go an adventure to right a wrong and each of them, in their own way, come to terms with their own identities and their own choices in life. If only we can come to terms with the choices that others make for us...with the decisions that people make <i>for</i> us that we, then, must live with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br />Let me begin by saying that this is an unexpectedly beautiful read.<br />Glendon Swarthout is a poet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The book was the 70s to me. Socially aware and awkward, all mixed into the lovely hearts of dinks with courage in spite of it all. Not just in Box Canyon Boys Camp just outside of Prescott AZ where the motto is <i>Send us a Boy, We'll Send you a Cowboy</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Seems like in the 70s bullies were everywhere. Did schools even have any idea what to do about that back then? Is it still the same? How many of us were placed into the misfit cabin of school because of the limitations placed on us by the alphas? Swarthout's depiction of the struggle of the misfits was moving and realistic to my experience in the 70s. The breaking hearts and unspoken piercing pain of each character, all six main characters: Cotton, Teft, Goodenow, Shecker, Lally1, and Lally2.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But who is really the misfit? The child responding to his abandonment or the parent who does the abandoning? The young person sobbing in his sleeping bag from the abuse or the cabin full of young men who get off on beating and badgering the weaker more sensitive boy or the adult leaders who encourage such violent competition to be <i>superior</i>? The pillow-toting travelers on a social mission passing through town or the cruel and vicious hangers about found in every small town in the country, projecting insecurities and self-loathing on unprotected, random vulnerable. The adults paying to gun down magnificent beasts in a faux and unfair nature or a group of <i>misfits</i> seeking to free them?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Allow me to share one of my favorite quotes from the book to give you an idea of the quality of writing we are talking about; it is a quote where the musing was about a western film: </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>You did not watch it. You sucked on it. For this is the marrowbone of every American adventure story: some men with guns, going somewhere, to do something dangerous. Whether it be to scout a continent in a covered wagon, to weld the Union in a screaming Wilderness, to save the world for democracy, to vault seas and rip up jungles by the roots and sow our seeds and flag and spirit: some men with guns, going somewhere, to do something dangerous.</i> </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I read <i>Bless the Beasts & Children</i> I often thought to myself, let me be Cotton. Let me have the courage and integrity of this boy willing to stand up for what is right, stand right in the face of louder people determined to put their heels down on the heads of seemingly lower people. Let me lose my cool only to discover that I am equipped with resilience. Let me have the confidence to lead the pack when all direction and plan is lost. Let me speak to myself and speak to my friends with the utmost belief that our lives fricking matter. Let me know when to hold on and when to let go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Each aside out of time in this book moved me almost to tears and pulled me further into the journey of these brave and deserving and fearful teens. I know I will revisit this book and recommend it to friends. I must give this book a very emotional seven stars. </span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-32813873712077633992016-12-19T00:45:00.000-08:002016-12-21T21:49:13.077-08:00Bless the Beasts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5P5AZyQk_FsL3By-7TPbp8TwSKtSO4cj3JrY5ty8PjF9x3iYdUP45iCj9jPK3E8J4Fk-0afoViRN5Gw69y_43QdBPlSAhfdF0F5gsSQf7iczn8KVhiOQ4cOsPcMMANLYbQ02xCtB-pU/s1600/beasts6.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK5P5AZyQk_FsL3By-7TPbp8TwSKtSO4cj3JrY5ty8PjF9x3iYdUP45iCj9jPK3E8J4Fk-0afoViRN5Gw69y_43QdBPlSAhfdF0F5gsSQf7iczn8KVhiOQ4cOsPcMMANLYbQ02xCtB-pU/s320/beasts6.png" width="202" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Back in the sixth grade I was in that classroom of smart kids. We had, somehow, completed the elementary school curriculum and we were doing all kind of cool independent work under the tutelage of our excellent teacher Mrs. Joanna Stork. I remember the very cool activities that she had us doing; lots of creative and independent work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was in that class that I read Glendon Swarthout's <i>Bless the Beasts & Children</i>. At this same time Karen Carpenter was on the charts with her song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhR36gV6vW4"><i>Bless the Beasts and the Children</i></a> to the hit film <i>Bless the Beasts & Children</i>. That song is was sublime then and it is sublime now. It was also the same year that I read <i>Born Free </i>by Joy Adams...I was so moved.<br /><br />This book came to my attention the other day and I decided to give it another go. I have so often found that revisiting books I've read in the past is such a wonderful trip. I should mention that I've never seen the film.<br /><br />Back soon with the 411.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-30144916756155430202016-10-25T04:19:00.001-07:002016-10-25T04:22:02.818-07:00The Truth According to Us by Annie Barrows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">The Truth According to Us</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">by Annie Barrows</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Are you one of the many who read the 2009 surprise hit <i>The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society</i> by Annie Barrows? What a delightfully charming and fabulous book that was! I remember buying that book from a small, independent book store in Webster Groves <span style="color: #e69138;">(I wonder if that delightful place is still there)</span> at the recommendation of a fellow shopper that day. I began reading it immediately and discovered a true gem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I ran across another book by Annie Barrows, coauthor of </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,</i> I quickly purchased it when I ran across it at the shop on my ereader...and for less than three bucks!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Truth According to Us</i> is a story about generations, about how each generation relies on the truth of the history of the previous generation and how those stories can box us in or set us free. Each chapter is told from the point of view of one of the main characters in the book: Willa Romeyn, the eleven year old daughter of the irascible and inscrutable Felix, Jottie Romeyn, sister of Felix, and Layla Beck, visiting daughter of a NY senator, in town to write a historical treatise of Macedonia West Virginia during the summer of 1938 as the town prepares for their sesquicentennial. These three women clash with and love one another and learn from one another. By writing from each point of view we discover delicious nuance and engaging personality quirks as we view events from a child's perspective and from the perspective of an adult. Quite interesting and often humorous. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Beloved Willa reminded me so much of Scout in <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> that I envisioned her as young Mary Badham from the 1962 film as I read the book. Always questioning, always longing for...something, always taking risks, knowing that the clean and tidy history she has been told is not true enough. Willa will remind us how confusing it is...this growing up.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Set in the small fictional town of Macedonia, West Virginia, we meet a delightful array of quirky, real characters around the Romeyn family, we learn about past losses and lost loves. As the story progresses, as we page forward, one page at a time, we uncover more and more of each character; we uncover what moves them, motivates them, what they long for.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">The unmasking takes much longer for with Felix, the handsome central character who remains hidden, yet beloved by all of the women in his life. The mysteries of his private life keep us turning the pages as more is revealed to those around him. We sincerely hope for things with Felix to be well because his eleven year old daughter is watching him like a hawk and needing him to be good, respectable, and, above all, knowable.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Personal histories, once again, slowly revealed affect each generation of women in different and very personal ways. And we discover that we never really know those around us and I, for one, enjoyed the deepening characterization of each main character.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the beginning Jottie, Aunt Jottie to Willa and her sister Bird, is quite two dimensional and background. But in the fullness of the read, this woman becomes as beloved and true as Willa to the reader. Her ability to love and forgive is moving beyond words. Jottie's courage, struggle, and eventual personal growth is a highlight from the book. Both Jottie and Layla Beck provide bookends of strength in the Romeyn home, giving the girls Willa and Birdie, truly, women to learn from, though first Layla has alot to learn about what love looks like. More than one person becomes unmasked. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">I loved this book.<br />I have continued to read as voraciously as ever, yet few books bring me to this blog. I knew, almost from page one, that this book was one for the internet. Annie Barrows writes with such spectacular detail, keen and amusing observation, wisdom. Grab some iced tea because this hot summer story of five hundred pages will grab you...you will call your book club leader and recommend this wonderful story of loyalty and forgiveness. Some may say that the many voices in the novel sanitize it a bit or even confused it. Some may dislike the too tidy ending. Myself, I was OK with it because, hey, summer is too hot for anything else.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Overall I would give this book a nice rating of six out of ten stars.</span></span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-80919251787333760752016-08-11T00:15:00.002-07:002016-08-12T18:04:49.651-07:00F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">The other evening I was having dinner with a new friend; we were talking about our favorite books. When I asked her what her most recent favorite book was she thought for a moment and replied, <i>I read it two years ago; it was </i><b>The Great Gatsby</b><i>. </i>Embarrassingly, I think I actually shrieked to her that I was reading the book right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">It's so great when you and your new friend like the same books.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I said the other day, I've read this book before. First time was in high school: HATED IT. Several times again over the years when someone would mention that they liked it: STILL HATED IT. I also didn't care for the Robert Redford, Mia Farrow film from '74. But, as I also mentioned the other day, I read too fast and I now realize that I have, time and again, missed the beauty of the book. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">When I read it this time I didn't miss the language.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As I read <i>Gatsby</i> on my ereader this time I highlighted dozens of passages, beautiful writing, good quotations. I read it over several days even though it is s very short novel. I even stopped for a couple of days in order to read the new Harry Potter. (worth it)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'm grateful to F. Scott Fitzgerald for having Nick Carraway tell this tale of people who are so incredibly bankrupt of common decency because I wouldn't have wanted to hear the story from anyone else: Daisy Buchanan, Jay Gatsby, Tom Buchanan, Jordan Baker, Meyer Wolfsheim, Myrtle Wilson. I'm glad Nick is the narrator because he is fair, truthful, decent, and he is confused by the intrapsychic feelings of worthlessness that seem to plague so many ultra-wealthy people. Without Nick's observations and good heart the tale wouldn't be worth telling. Tom and Daisy wouldn't be people worth knowing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nick's storytelling gave beauty to the people and to the memories. He paints beautiful pictures with his words and moves us like a master.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">If not through Nick's opinions and words I would not know what to think about Jay Gatsby. Was Gatsby a pitiful sham of a human being? Was he a corrupt bootlegger? Was he a deranged and obsessed man in mental anguish? Or was he a lovesick romantic worthy of our compassion? A man pursuing meaning in a life of empty pleasure?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've decided that I care about Jay Gatsby for a simple reason: that he is hopeful. He is a man from very modest means attempting to navigate the culture of the extraordinarily wealthy, albeit through illegal means. I choose to see his admittedly stalker ways as romantic, charming, and human. I love that he reinvented himself, that he lifted himself up and pursued his dreams. According to the rules of The American Dream, you can't do better than that. Seems the biggest misfortune in Gatsby's life happened the moment he met the beautiful and flawed Daisy, the girl who seemed to be living the American dream...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The wealthiest in the country in the Jazz Age of the 1920s were, then, living the American dream. But is the American dream really lots of money, pursuing excess and pleasure, intoxication, jewels, spending huge amounts of money? Or is that pursuit just as empty, disappointing, and misleading as chasing Daisy Buchanan turned out to be? Gilded but ultimately not worth it?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am disgusted by the insipid Daisy Buchanan and her equally heartless, morally bankrupt husband Tom Buchanan. I'm certain it was their abrupt departure during the crisis that destroyed poor Nick. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I haven't read anything else by F. Scott Fitzgerald but I see by the titles and description of his famous books <i>The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night, </i>and<i> This Side of Paradise</i> all seem to be exploring the raging 1920s and the decadence juxtaposed with the beauty, the greed and the fragility, weakness, and the vulnerability of love. Gatsby certainly fits that focus. Perhaps F. Scott Fitzgerald's own life choices fit that focus as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Most of us know of Fitzgerald's Jazz Age lifestyle, his chronic alcoholism and over-the-top way of life, and his relationship with the tragically unstable and schizophrenic Zelda. Take those major struggles in his life and it's no wonder he would write books about such pain, struggle, emptiness, illness, and decline. What <i>is</i> a wonder is that he could do so with such beautiful language and in an interestingly clear perspective of a clear-headed, voice of integrity like Nick Carraway.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">Some of my favorite quotes from are not the usual ones you find repeated online, but the longer, lovelier descriptions and dreamy imagery by Nick Carraway. Some of this is too beautiful for the story of HollaGirl Daisy.</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-size: large;">We were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his
own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his
unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp
again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer
to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her.
At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was
complete. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world,
paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have
looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered
as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight
was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being
real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted
fortuitously about...like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward
him through the amorphous trees. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her
glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened -
then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret,
like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-size: large;">Each night he added to the pattern of his fancies until drowsiness
closed down upon some vivid scene with an oblivious embrace. For awhile
these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a
satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock
of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There's more, lots more, but you'll have to read for yourself to appreciate it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'd already seen the Robert Redford film so I watched the Leonard DeCaprio version. While I adore the beautiful Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, Leonardo seemed simply too old for the character of Gatsby. Besides, nobody says "Old Sport" quite as sincerely and heartbreakingly as Robert Redford. Robert Redford is incredibly beautiful and fits the role better in his natural vulnerability and his preppy, pretty-boy face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">With certainty that I will read even better books, I'm giving Gatsby an 8 out of 10 stars.<br /></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Again, I have to thank my sister Linda for </span></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f9cb9c;"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> encouraging me to reread this book. </span></span></span></b></span></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-84998725849431576722016-08-04T17:46:00.002-07:002016-08-04T17:46:48.595-07:00Nick & Jay & Daisy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">I know I said I would only write about books I've never read before, but it's as though I'm reading this book for the first time. F. Scott Fitzgerald's <i>The Great Gatsby</i> is one of those books you can read again and again and always read something new.The first <i>several</i> times I read this book, usually under duress, I hated the book. Hated. The Book. Hated. The. Characters. Hated. It.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">But I'm the lucky one because my sister Linda is a tremendous lover of literature and she is my own personal literature advocate. She and I were talking about Gatsby the other day. I was saying how awful I thought it was and how I was surprised she was making her kids read it. (She teaches high school English and Literature). She told me her kids LOVE it; I was doubtful.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Linda started her magic with me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">She told me that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a poet, that his writing is beautiful and lyrical and poetic and, if I would pay attention to the writing, that I would love it. Furthermore she told me that she often encourages her students to skip the first chapter of the book ("Nick can be long winded") and skip to the second chapter, right into the fun part of the book.</span><br />
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<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">I have been a heavy reader for my entire life, but recently I've realized I have been reading wrong. As a young girl I was the fastest reader in my class, as per the speed reading machine, and I was proud of that. I have continued to read very fast, often reading for story rather than for language, skimming, zipping through long books, missing lots of detail and depth. This past month has been a huge epiphany for me; I've decided to sloooow it down and enjoy the read, rather than get through it quickly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe that is why I am appreciating Gatsby so much this time. <br />I'll be back in a few days (or more!) with my post on The Great Gatsby.</span><br />
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Don Birnam, the protagonist of Charles Jackson's <i><br /></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i> The Lost Weekend</i>, <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Weekend_%28novel%29" title="The Lost Weekend (novel)"></a></i>says to himself, </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"> referring to <i>The Great Gatsby</i>, </span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"> "There's no such thing ... as a flawless novel. </span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: white;"><span style="background-color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: large;"> But if there is, this is it." </span></span></span></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-3216470753999507792016-07-29T17:42:00.001-07:002016-07-29T18:15:13.852-07:00Tracy Chevalier's "The Virgin Blue"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEiMIcuzs2K2IDgxEEDlLJ6kfIFac4N95MFYZbhPglCC4cHOkW_UJTLI76HPRKkZURfnAEGl9GojCp1uyTCfWNPxJFnCoD53WZKvW2-exf6gmp24LV64gKisQytzULrNgECrcfDLO7pdE/s1600/virgin+blue06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEiMIcuzs2K2IDgxEEDlLJ6kfIFac4N95MFYZbhPglCC4cHOkW_UJTLI76HPRKkZURfnAEGl9GojCp1uyTCfWNPxJFnCoD53WZKvW2-exf6gmp24LV64gKisQytzULrNgECrcfDLO7pdE/s320/virgin+blue06.jpg" width="230" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Since 1997 <a href="http://www.tchevalier.com/">Tracy Chevalier</a> has been writing historical fiction novels with strong foundational history bases through which the characters move. It is clear that author Tracy Chevalier and I share a love of art history. In the late 90s I read Chevalier's popular book <i>Girl with a Pearl Earring</i>, like most novel readers of that time, and with it I discovered the genre of historical fiction. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Set at the time of Johannes Vermeer, part of the narrative and part of the action of <i>Girl with the Pearl Earring </i>describes the delicacy and dedication it took to create both paint colors and canvas. Part of the action included the running of the household and the financing of Vermeer's work by sponsors and art patrons. Chevalier's love of history shone bright and clear in that novel and drew me in like a moth to the genre of historical fiction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Since <i>Girl with the Pearl Earring</i> I have read dozens of historical fiction novels. Some are more based in real history than others while some are less history and more fiction. I prefer the very historical books. If you like the genre I can recommend three favorites that I've read in the recent year or two: <i>Benjamin Franklin's Bastard: A Novel</i> by Sally Cabot, <i>Losing Julia</i> by Jonathan Hull, and <i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Mr. Emerson's Wife</i> by Amy Belding Brown. I have about a dozen more historical fiction books on my ereader that I haven't read yet but that I'm looking forward to.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJ6hkLCfCyigf56RnRCmn0EoYvxFX1GBhgwVO1L5vlx73ve-2Lwr6z75giDe6xN0YWDPG_lSVCcY2M-hRtXthuWBhGgUJG-LF2AHxGmBXH6VTtlfR4CAI8X9Nao7XCPDtyeazwNvusuQ/s1600/chevalier2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJ6hkLCfCyigf56RnRCmn0EoYvxFX1GBhgwVO1L5vlx73ve-2Lwr6z75giDe6xN0YWDPG_lSVCcY2M-hRtXthuWBhGgUJG-LF2AHxGmBXH6VTtlfR4CAI8X9Nao7XCPDtyeazwNvusuQ/s320/chevalier2.jpg" width="176" /></a><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">In this book <a href="http://www.tchevalier.com/thevirginblue/story/index.html"><i>The Virgin Blue</i></a> we follow two characters on parallel paths. Current-day American Ella Turner and 16th century peasant woman Isabelle du Moulin lead dual storylines, my favorite type of set up. Ella Turner and her husband are temporarily living in France for her husband's work. Ella struggles to fit into the small French town they are living in and begins to bristle a bit at the edges. Being of French descent she begins to do some genealogy. During her research Ella begins to have nightmares of a red-haired woman wearing a blue cloth.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second storyline with Isabelle, a hidden Catholic in a town of Heugonots, is accused of witchcraft and is generally a pariah in town. </span><span style="font-size: large;">The Massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris, </span><span style="font-size: large;">the murder of thousands of French Protestants, <i>Huguenots</i>, in Paris beginning 24 August 1572, sends waves of persecution throughout France. Being a Catholic was...not good. The family Isabelle is forced to marry into is quite cruel, rigid, and very anti-Catholic. Isabelle and her daughter Marie, named after the Virgin, are treated cruelly, so cruelly that Ella of the 20th century feels the pain of their treatment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Suffice it to say, religious persecution is not new. Although the book never uses the words <i>ghost</i> or <i>reincarnation</i>, the reader can't possibly get through the book without wondering if some sort of spiritual hanky-panky isn't at play</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I can't use the words <i>elegant</i> or <i>scholarly</i> to describe this early Chevalier novel because it lacks grace, sophistication, and balance at certain points in the story, qualities that her later books possess. But this is an early book and the author does read as a diamond in the rough in this book and I can't help but wonder if I had read this book before reading later Chevalier books, if I would have loved it more by not having the comparison available to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">My favorite quote by Tracy Chevalier: It's a rare book that wins the battle against the drooping eyelids.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I absolutely adore the concept of taking a work of art, real historical events, and creating a story of dramatic human suffering and struggle. Chevalier is a master of this formula and I highly recommend her books. As for this book, I give is a high six stars out of ten.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip2WwhjcYoPKclwVJSxcu6RoGqVtrdmXGuO7vBwwrHKwvly3f92mz5XLuQ5JLakpCpM0CqAbkY6xSQMI7fjGtfS8iBlb6d0QaFb-oDtOWBuM9xzyi6aSQ_doQHnuRU-0LrPuz6RiMlfg0/s1600/stars+6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="39" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip2WwhjcYoPKclwVJSxcu6RoGqVtrdmXGuO7vBwwrHKwvly3f92mz5XLuQ5JLakpCpM0CqAbkY6xSQMI7fjGtfS8iBlb6d0QaFb-oDtOWBuM9xzyi6aSQ_doQHnuRU-0LrPuz6RiMlfg0/s320/stars+6.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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My THANKS if you can help me figure out why Ella's eczema was mentioned so often.</div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-52662239706017155302016-07-26T06:53:00.000-07:002016-07-26T06:53:34.062-07:00Next Up: Tracy Chevalier<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBzZb9YKW4bBy7kXPtEX2Kv2nNlZuo9sR2XLut8-uHpwL5tFHR-otqUTZAwRvbjb0Zs2C5qIGO1L5cVm1MZxR9r0LxvKN15s5PfTY-JCZIZe8ig-g0_iMSMSeRNA6zoraljbM3TJNONQ/s1600/virgin+blue06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBzZb9YKW4bBy7kXPtEX2Kv2nNlZuo9sR2XLut8-uHpwL5tFHR-otqUTZAwRvbjb0Zs2C5qIGO1L5cVm1MZxR9r0LxvKN15s5PfTY-JCZIZe8ig-g0_iMSMSeRNA6zoraljbM3TJNONQ/s320/virgin+blue06.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="230" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Were you among the many who were enamored with Tracy Chevalier's bestseller <i>Girl With the Pearl Earring</i>?<br /><br />OH, with <i>Girl With the Pearl Earring</i> we were delightedly moved and transported to the time of Danish painter Johannes Vermeer and drawn into a beautiful historical fiction about that beautiful, enigmatic painting. For me that book was an introduction to the historical fiction genre'. I loved it. I didn't love the film, but I did <i>like</i> it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">What I loved about Chevalier's GWTPE was the history, the real history, in the book. How paints were created, Vermeer's life and family, Danish culture. It was wonderfully and richly written and I adored it. That is why I picked up my next book <i>The Virgin Blue: A Novel</i> by Tracy Chevalier. I've had it on the book table to read for a couple of years now. I'm finally giving it some attention.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Virgin Blue: A Novel</i> was written before GWTPE and was, therefore, written before the fanfare of that novel.That is noteworthy because that makes this book the original Chevalier historical fiction novel. I can assure you, the wealth of historical information in this book is very satisfying and worth a read; Tracy Chevalier really did her research for this one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I saw several different book covers for this book, all of them beautiful, but I didn't see a single book cover with the painting of the actual inspiration for the book. <br />It is this one:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Check back in a day or two for my post on <i>The Virgin Blue: A Novel</i>.<br />I'm enjoying it.</span></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-52097976621272731342016-07-20T08:29:00.001-07:002016-07-21T13:45:33.411-07:00And the Next Book, and the Next...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This post in an important and totally typically TMI post.: </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I will probably never be fully satisfied with posts that I write about the books I read. I have an expectation for myself that my posts should be intellectually keen, surprisingly savvy, intuitive, insightful, or unique. I expect my own posts to display some intellectual depth, to exhibit my unique connections, or maybe to incite further interest or something. Not necessarily brilliant or slick, but unique.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But the truth is, when it comes time to write I go blank and I can think of nothing to say. Just like every other writer in the world, I guess. The truth is that much of the processing of novel reading happens over time. The book needs time to percolate, to make connection, to figure out meaning. In real life, sometimes I don't appreciate what I've read for months, it takes time to process.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm writing this post for two people.<br />For me.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For you.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm allowing myself to write posts that are, sometimes, less than they can be and I'm letting any readers know that any review or post here is simply thoughts of a moment in time. Probably an embryonic and premature moment in time.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But there you are.</span></span></span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-55350716259471778022016-07-16T23:55:00.002-07:002016-07-17T00:24:48.215-07:00Terry Tempest Williams: When Women Were Birds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">It happened again; I found an amazing book. When I picked it up I had no idea it was such a treasure. And it wasn't.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">When Women Were Birds:<br />Fifty-Four Variations</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">of Voice</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">By Terry Tempest Williams</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>I am leaving you all my journals, but you must promise me you won't
look at them until after I'm gone.</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This is what Terry Tempest Williams' mother told Terry just a week before she died. Terry's mother left her three shelves worth of personal journals. When Terry's mother died Terry discovered that the shelves of journals were all blank. This memoir is Terry's exploration of voice and what it means to have voice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While I was reading I couldn't stop highlighting. The beautiful words, the contemplation, the questions, the poetry, the lyrical meditation on what it means that her mother's journals are empty, what it means to have a voice, what it means to find beauty in the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">As it happens, we all have to fight for our voices, men and women. This book is a call to finding your own voice. You won't be able to help yourself. You will be drawn in for many of the fifty-four chapters and you will be grateful for it. Terry Tempest Williams truly has a voice worth listening to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I highlighted hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of words in the first half of this book. Words, voice, speaking out. Terry Tempest Williams is a woman who learned that speaking out was essential, and so she spoke out in this beautiful book. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The beginning of the book, Tempest's writing is like poetry or prose. Lyrical and stunning and meaningful and personal, clean and pure, philosophical. It is like a delicious buffet of ideas and rich flavors. If only she had stuck with the subject of her lessons and relationship with her mother.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Somewhere part way through the entire feel of the book changed and I started wondering what I was reading. About half way through I realized that I was reading a memoir of a woman with an ecological message, and that she was trying to combine her emotional processes of her relationship with her mother and the struggle to protect millions of Utah acres. This is when the confusion came for me...and when I realized that the book was a bit of a scrapbook. It became uneven, meandering, a bit too much. <span class="a-size-base review-text">At times, I felt as if her
voice veered off as the book would weave into pompous effluent feminist,
ecological and political issues and falls just short of becoming too false to me. Although I personally agree with the some of her opinions <span style="color: #999999;">(who wouldn't want to protect the beautiful topography of Utah)</span> the writing loses it's compelling key.</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The cry for the National Parks in Utah almost killed the book for me, truly felt like an entirely separate book. But I stuck with it for the beautiful parts. And that is why I give this book a very strong seven stars.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-65365011240904714892016-07-16T20:12:00.001-07:002016-07-16T20:12:07.278-07:00Harper Lee: Go Set a Watchman<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="background-color: #660000;"> WARNING! SPOILERS! </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Starting a blog about my reading is presumptuous as hell because it seems as though I am saying that my thoughts and musing about my reading are so very readable. But I know that they are not. I know that my reading is rather mediocre and that my opinions and reviews about books are fairly pedestrian.<br /><br />But I decided to do this blog anyway because sometimes I run across a remarkable book among the many stacks that is so worth sharing or that I simply need to talk about. That's why this blog exists. But this next book is not one of the remarkable books. It's a good one, but not remarkable.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">While reading the book I was talking with a friend who expressed an opinion that surprised me, that Harper Lee's <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> is probably not a<i> Great American Novel</i> and that she doesn't support its being included in most high school required reading lists. I had to stop and think about that one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So much happens in the world that we all just go along with, without question or with out questioning. Even though I like to think that I question question question, still reading TKAM was one of those thigs for me that I simply accepted as fact: <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> is a Great American Novel. In fact, my son is reading it right now for a high school reading book and he's enjoying it very much.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I guess I'll leave it up to you what you think about TKAM. I think I will always love it. It takes me back to my childhood (in the 60's) in a small town where things were slow, we were all generally innocent (read: we didn't question what <i>was</i>), and bad things and good things happened around us all of the time and we just lived with them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>Go Set a Watchman</i> was published in 2015, though it was written in the 1950s, a draft that was written and rejected. It was not originally written as a sequel to TKAM but was an early draft written as a stand-alone novel. Although the events of the novel occur twenty years after those in TKAM, it is helpful to know that <i>Go Set a Watchman</i> was intended as a novel on its own. However, most of us of this era will always view the newer novel as a sequel because of the updating of characters' lives and because of the seeming resolution of Scout's move from young person to adult.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The book opens up as Scout returns to Maycomb after being in the Big City for about a decade, living on her own. Viewing the smaller town through her eyes is more than a right of passage, it is an eye-opener that almost everyone who has ever lived in a small town has experienced. Not surprisingly Scout has grown into a quick, smart, accomplished young woman.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">She is still likable, Scout with her sharper edges. Visiting her aging father, Scout reminisces about absent people and important childhood events (Oh no, I'm not letting the cats out of the bags) as she struggles to figure out her relationship with her boyfriend, </span><span style="font-size: large;">Henry Clinton, a reputable young lawyer in Atticus’s practice who hopes to marry Jean Louise one day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Scout seems to be just about ready to enter into a commitment with Henry Clinton when she learns, to her shock and dismay, that Henry and Atticus are members of a Klan-like organization in Maycomb called the Maycomb County Citizens' Counsel, a group established after </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Brown v. Board of Education, designed to appear as a respectable organization for the good business people of Maycomb </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">but is, truly, a means to empower those who support racial segregation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Scout makes this discovery, that her father openly supports community </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">framework for racism, and it rocks her entire world.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I enjoyed it enough to finish it but not enough to recommend a read. It's not bad and worth a read if you are a fan of KTAM, if only to get further idea of what was in Harper Lee's mind when she wrote that book. Scout is likable and her struggle is relatable. I do feel as though some further processing could have gone on with Scout and between she and her father. As well as between she and Henry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My favorite quote from the book comes from a conversation between Atticus and Henry; Atticus says: <i>Don't push her. Let her go at her own speed. Push her and every mule in the county'd be easier to live with</i>. For cutting Atticus down to an average man of his time, I give the book a zero. For some good and interesting writing that feels like a familiar and likable Scout in Maycomb, I give this book a six. Average that out and I give it three stars.</span></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-61778111507777889232016-07-06T14:46:00.002-07:002016-07-06T14:46:50.367-07:00Next Up: Harper Lee<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;">Last night I was doing some research on great new books to read and I've got a new list a mile long, well, half a mile long. In the meantime I'm on to my next book, a book that has been on the list for about a year. <br /><br />I am a huge fan of <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i>, especially Scout and Atticus. I think <i>Go Set a Watchman</i> is essentially about these two characters. I'm open to anything that comes my way. The reviews on the book in the beginning were quite mixed and I haven't heard much about the book since, so we'll see.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I'll be back soon; I'm already half way through.</span><br />
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-9511104230068415252016-07-05T19:46:00.001-07:002016-07-16T14:04:06.811-07:00The Last Picture Show<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="background-color: #660000;"> WARNING! SPOILERS! </span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyaXIFaos18l39RUZtHrgg9xWACpgzFDbs4JX6sNLQTzur2q3erZ5WR7o9K2tSEgdRd3DeDDU4gq3g_X6zMDe1IP_b94QKSdg-eDoBkwNrNcSIggNRtu8MuPGEqyU914xrJN5wguod_Q/s1600/larry+mcmurtry4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOyaXIFaos18l39RUZtHrgg9xWACpgzFDbs4JX6sNLQTzur2q3erZ5WR7o9K2tSEgdRd3DeDDU4gq3g_X6zMDe1IP_b94QKSdg-eDoBkwNrNcSIggNRtu8MuPGEqyU914xrJN5wguod_Q/s400/larry+mcmurtry4.jpg" width="236" /></a><span style="font-size: large;">Well, I didn't love it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I've been a huge reader my entire life. As I was growing up <i>Lonesome Dove</i> was so popular, I think I might have been the only human being on the planet who didn't either read it in the 1970s or watch it in the 1980sm and that's why I randomly decided to give it a go.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Last Picture Show</i> is a story of the small town America, a coming-of-age story some would say. But I rather dislike the idea that growing up is a singular event in a book, <span style="font-size: small;">UGH <i>A Separate Peace and Catcher in the Rye, </i><span style="font-size: large;">or maybe I fail to grasp the universality of the events typically depicted in such books. I admit it might be my own issue, the generally not appreciating this genre, the so-called coming-of-age novel. I don't think I have ever, ever liked a coming-of-age novel... (If you're looking for a great coming-of-age book, though, try <i>Thirteen Reasons Why</i> by Jay Asher.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The major players in TLPS are Sonny, our hero, his best friend Duane, and Duane's girlfriend Jacy (Jack ee? or Jasey?) all living in the fictional Texas town called Thalia. As these three high school students navigate their own identities and their own sexual experience I found myself wondering if some of the things that they did were truly common among young teens or among teens living in a small town. Almost none of their experiences seemed to sync with my own teen years...except for the many <i>questions</i> and the much <i>confusion</i> about sexuality, the opposite sex, and the sense of self. Maybe I lived in a cave in high school...</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So much of the sexual stuff described in the book might be considered sexually-deviant and appalling; it felt that way, even to me...and how square that sounds. But really, without giving away too much of the content of the book, I'm pretty sure you would agree with that. How realistic? Not very, I think. But I would describe many of the sex scenes as sad, sadistic, crass, humiliating, unappealing, cold, or impersonal. On the other hand, Sonny's confusion and questioning was very readable and relatable. Sonny's journey through the year portrayed in the novel is not a happy journey. From his unrequited love for the town flirt to the secret affair with a married woman, Sonny is bound to find unhappiness while living in Thalia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The dry and dead town of Thalia, in my opinion, is also a character in the story because the failing little town suffocates each character it varying ways, causing them to act in painfully desperate ways. Perhaps Thalia's aridity and dead-ended-ness is what causes so many of its citizens to look to sex as a way out, as a way to feel something, as a way to connect, to find meaning, maybe to feel alive, though very little of the sex described in the book is life affirming. Interestingly, the ancient Greek goddess Thalia was the goddess of festivity and rich banquets and the Greek work <i>thalia</i> is an adjective used to describe banquets, meaning rich, plentiful, luxuriant, and abundant.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Only two of the characters in the book seemed to offer any wisdom or humanity to Sonny, to the town. Jacy's mother Lois, though also one who has found only pain in her sexuality, is clearer-eyed and strong enough to maintain her individuality among the small-minded small town bunch. She is truthful, even when it is painful. Mostly Lois seems to be an artifact of a time when Thalia was a thriving cattle town. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The other minor character who seems to bring humanity and wisdom to Thalia is Sam the Lion, the man who operates the local billiard club. His behavior tends to be reserved, guided, in control, in stark contrast to every other adult in the book. The more we learn about Sam's life the more we recognize how unique he is in town.<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;">Seems like something needs to be said about the town flirt, Jacy, and her similarities with her mother, maybe a word about the ceaselessness of the town's decline and how that decline effects her, maybe something about the numbness Jacy feels that calls for extravagant behavior to feel alive, maybe a few words about the wastefulness of idle, wealthy teens, or perhaps something about the essential need for good role models. But I'm not saying it here. ;)</span> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Summarily, as our teens change into young adults we see no growth or improvement in their sense of maturity or in their direction in life. In fact, the morbid fact of same old-same old leaves the reader with an overwhelming sense of depression at the continuation of squalor, painful and dead end life choices, and little opportunity presenting itself to our characters. Sorry to be blunt, but there it is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Notable quote: <i>Anything gets boring if you do it enough.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I did not find McMurtry's writing to be compelling or deep or appealing at all, frankly. It is bloody unlikely I will ever pick up another McMurtry book ever, including <i>Lonesome Dove</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have to give this book three stars, mostly for some scenes where Sonny and Billy, a simple-minded townie, connect and also for a few scenes between Sonny and his best friend Duane.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #660000;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"> What did you think? <br /> Did you like it? </span></span></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4519486759144705020.post-36401618967081262182016-07-04T00:41:00.000-07:002016-07-04T00:41:05.378-07:00Next Up: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7COWHQmgEQ9iD6i1UD0Ui3BiC3aG-sNi5GrC3GDC7uVFUT-RyOC3SMbxMtkUh4LJxc9MsvPaJX8pz5_mZ3Fx8Rj-hUXp74vigx1VV0ESFFkrtByywlCALiDG11ouNJF46RbElKG-u9I/s1600/larry+mcmurtry3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii7COWHQmgEQ9iD6i1UD0Ui3BiC3aG-sNi5GrC3GDC7uVFUT-RyOC3SMbxMtkUh4LJxc9MsvPaJX8pz5_mZ3Fx8Rj-hUXp74vigx1VV0ESFFkrtByywlCALiDG11ouNJF46RbElKG-u9I/s320/larry+mcmurtry3.jpg" width="229" /></a><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Turns out the author of <i>The Last Picture Show</i> also wrote <i>Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment</i>, and <i>The Evening Star</i>. I'm imagining two of my least favorite actresses: Cybil Sheppard and Shirley McClaine...yet I am still reading <i>TLPS</i> and I refuse to image Cybil as a character.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Up next, Larry McMurtry's </span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Last Picture Show</i> </span>, copyright 1966.</span><br />
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<b><span style="background-color: #660000;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"> Interested in reading along with me? </span></span></b></div>
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Karenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03309932952235453461noreply@blogger.com0