For the Love of Books...

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11/30/07--07:54: Welcome! (chan 2155211)

Welcome! Isn't the image in the title box gorgeous? I love the English countryside/moors. Isn't it strange how a place simply captures your heart and won't let go? Unfortunately, I am stuck here in Maryland because this is where our jobs are. But I can dream! And go on vacation :-) But I travel in my head to the far corners of the world and back in time through my love of reading, especially historical fiction. Historical fiction is my first love and passion. That's not to say I don't read other types of books- in fact, I started a book club for exactly that reason- to expand my horizons. I've never been involved in a book club before and I'm sorry I waited so long. It's a fantastic way of getting to know people through our passionate love of books.
The other way I expand my horizons, so to speak, is to work as a volunteer reviewer and distributer for the Historical Novel Society (www.historicalnovelsociety.org). In the role of reviewer, I often volunteer to review books set in times and places that are outside of my comfort zone, which are books set in medieval England or that take place during the first and second World Wars. I have discovered some marvelous books that way and have opened myself to the delights of historical fantasy and Civil War history, for example.
One of the reasons I love historical fiction is because it is such a pleasant way to learn history. I hated history classes in high school- memorizing lists of dates and events was torture to me. But in college, I took a history course in which we read works of literature to supplement the dry history texts. It was like discovering a great secret- ah, this is how I learn best! Thus began my love affair with historical fiction.
Historical fiction also sweeps me away from the mundaneness and occasionally ugliness of reality. Sometimes it is easier to for me to be excited by the mundaneness of life in a past era; and the ugly affairs of the past are often romanticized by time, making them riveting reading.
In general, my favorite books are lengthy family sagas or epics- the longer, the better. If the book is part of a trilogy, fantastic! I prefer lengthy books because, having put so much effort into starting one, I like to coast along enjoyably for as long as possible before starting from scratch again.
I love the physical sensation of books- they way they feel in my hands, the way they smell, the satisfaction of turning the crisp pages of a newly-minted tome. The idea of reading e-books is completely abhorrent to me. Reading on a cold, impersonal computer? No way!I am an avid collector and my home is overflowing with books.
So, fellow book lovers, join me to reminisce about thumping good reads that are like comforting old friends and to explore new genres and titles, from both my book club and my personal collection.






12/04/07--12:38: Thoughts on The Glass Castle (chan 2155211)

My book club discussed our December pick, "The Glass Castle" by Jeanette Walls. We were excited to read this memoir, expecting great things based on all of the glowing reviews. We were bitterly disappointed. To me, this book read like a litany of immature actions by incredibly dysfunctional (sick is more like it, actually) parents. And even worse, throughout the entire book there was a sense of resigned acceptance- not the positive kind, in my opinion. More like: "my alcoholic father brought me to a bar and prostituted me, but that's okay because that's how he is." There was no sense of indignation and no affect whatsoever from the author. There was definitely no sense healing, of recovery. It was empty. I think we all agreed on that. I suspect we are all going to purge this one from our libraries ASAP.

Onto a different topic: I'm working on a list of my ten favorite thumping good reads. There are so many that I'm having a tough time narrowing my favorites down to just ten. I will post them as a list in the next couple of days and write mini-reviews of each one in the coming weeks.






12/04/07--12:47: Thoughts on The Time Traveler's Wife (chan 2155211)

Our book club pick for November was this novel by Audrey Niffeneger and it made for a very lively discussion. We may not have "fallen in love" with any particular character, but we thought it was an extremely imaginative and complex novel.
Personally, I got a bit too emotionally involved in feeling Henry's pain and fear. I have trouble separating myself from fictional characters sometimes- my own boundary issue, I guess. But that was the most interesting part of this book to me- the view of time travel as being something dangerous and frightening rather than being a positive experience. A quote I've often heard, "Your mind is a dangerous place, don't go in there alone" could have been Henry's theme. When he traveled, he could take nothing with him, and I mean NOTHING- not clothes, not food, not the basic means for survival. He was completely, utterly vulnerable. He couldn't chose where or when he went or who he met there. There was a pervasive, underlying melancholy and sense of doom because of this vulnerability.
I thought the premise- that Henry has a genetic disorder that causes random time travel and that he represents an evolution of the human species- was very plausible. Some reviewers don't think this premise was necessary and think that it even detracted from the story. I respectfully disagree. I think the premise is the thread that weaves the the story together and makes it an almost believable science fiction. I can think of ways that we "time travel" in our heads- for example, when we see, smell, touch, or taste something that reminds us of our past. The sense leads us back to a specific time and place, a specific memory. Another example is when we have an anxiety or panic attack or feel overwhelming fear- these are emotions that are generated by past traumas and return to haunt us in the present moment.
Henry's travels were life threatening. If he had time traveled for no apparent reason, I don't think I could have continued through to the final page of the book.
I can't say that I enjoyed this book because I felt overpowered by the bleakness that permeated the story, but it was an eye-opening experience and I would definitely recommend it for book clubs.






01/03/08--08:38: Wild Lavender by Belinda Alexandra (chan 2155211)

I found a wonderful new author! It's been a long time since I have discovered a story that has enveloped me like this. I was referred to this book by people who loved The Bronze Horseman by Paulina Simmons, one of my favorite authors. I was skeptical because, to me, Horseman was as close to perfect as a novel can get, so how could another book come even close to living up to perfection? Okay, so, it isn't perfect, but it surely was excellent.
Wild Lavender takes place in 1920's France and continues through WW2. It is two stories wrapped up into one. The first is Simone Fleuriere's (the daughter of lavender farmers in Provence) struggle to make something of herself and her life, to overcome the adversity of being destitute and dependent on people with very small hearts. The second revolves around her decisions and tribulations during the war in occupied France. This book took my breath away. I could smell the lavender, feel the fear in Paris during the war, and empathize with Simone. She is a a fully rounded, breathing character who pulsates with life. She is heroic, in the sense that she puts her life on the line for others, even for pets who are tossed heartlessly out on the street, and she handles her own heartbreaks with quiet, if sad, dignity.
I love WW2 era dramas- I don't know why, but this particular period speaks to me, almost as if I were there. Just as Horseman brought alive WW2 era Leningrad, Lavender brings WW2 era Paris to life. It is not quite as mind-blowingly intense as Horseman, which may be a relief to those who do not want to spend nights awake reliving the horrors of Leningrad, but there is enough passion and suffering in this book to make it claim a spot in your mind for a long time to come. It is a long novel, over 500 pages, perfect for cold winter evenings. It is what I call a "thumping good read" and I hope, if you decide the book is for you, that you enjoy it as much as I did.






05/10/08--09:44: A New Start for 2008 (chan 2155211)

It's been too long since I last posted. In these past months, my contemporary fiction book club has disbanded, and I have since started up a classics reading group. We, in the contemporary group, were simply not enjoying our picks. We were consistently disappointed with the quality or the depressing tones of our choices. We didn't join a book club to be depressed!

I have been longing for quite a while to catch up on all the literature I missed out on in high school. I received a substanard education in a rural Kansas institution (the emphasis being on Kansas history--really, how much is there to learn about Kansas!!!) and then read mostly politically correct and obscure European literature in college. I crave to read the works of the great dead white men and women!!!! Tolstoy, Austen, Bronte, Dostoevsky, Defoe, Elliott, Lawrence, Trollope, Dumas...


We are beginning with Willa Cather's My Antonia (an-ton-ee-ya). It's a short novel, set in the 19th-century American Midwest; a farming tale of struggle, a love affair with the prairie. It's a story of immigrant survival in a rough new world. I have finished it and, in my opinion, it was a worthwhile read, if for nothing else but the horror stories the immigrants bring with them to the new world and the beautiful language Cather uses to illustrate her infatuation with the land.
When I began reading, I was very confused- I thought this book was about a girl named "Antonia," yet it read as though it was revolving around the life of Jim Burden, a young orphan, sent to Nebraska to live with his grandparents. In truth, it is about Jim, who is, from first sight, smitten with Antonia and tracks her life from that of a young girl to mature woman. The pace of the narrative varies: sometimes moving at a snail's pace, other times rushing by quickly.

(I'm writing this now in Nov 08, a long time since I started this post- I can no longer remember the details of My Antonia, but generally that our group was rather unimpressed. There were a few memorable scenes, however we chalked it up to an "interesting" reading experience (you readers know what that means!)










11/20/08--14:45: It's been quite a while! (chan 2155211)

I've taken a hiatus for the past- who knows how long. Apologies all around. It won't happen again.

Well, my classics group has not been such a success either. After My Antonia we chose Dr. Zhivago with high hopes, which were shortly completely dashed. I think one of the four of us made it through. It was heavy on philosophy and light on plot, and dull at that- that was our conclusion. Where was the story of Dr. Zhivago and his two women? Only in the movie version, which we watched at our meeting. Onwards and upward then to something completely different - Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson. Ahhh, finally, a rousing pick. A rollicking, swaggering, pirate, outlaw-being-hunted-through-the-mountains-and-moors-of-Scotland adventure. I love Stevenson's writing-sophisticated, vivid and readable. And half of the fun of the book is reading some of the accent-laden sentences out loud to yourself. All the sudden I found myself speaking in a Scotttish brogue! How exciting! Seriously, it was a fun read. I really enjoyed it and proved to myself that classics don't have to be BORING.

Next up is my HNS review book, Cardigan Bay by John Kerr, an espionage thriller/romance. We shall see :-)