Last Tally

Ok, so I started a little after Lucy on this, so I’m catching up. Here are the books I didn’t write about, but I read, to finish up my 52 for the year:

44: Beginner’s Greek by James Collins – ok, but not on my must read list

45: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton – excellent, read it!

46: The Weight of Heaven by Thrity Umrigar – I love her, but this book is a huge downer. Read it if you absolutely must read about someone with worse problems than your own, but it’s a train wreck of a novel.

47: Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens – Just want to say I was way ahead of Oprah on this call, as you will see further down. Though, in all fairness to ME, I read these before she said anything! (I’m not bitter, because really, you should read it. I just don’t like Oprah telling me to! Though do support Donor’s Choose, it’s one of Oprah’s best for 2010)

48: The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig – another one I have my book club to thank for. A real gem of a book, particularly if you were a fan of The Great Brain or Little House books as a kid.

49: A Memory of War by Frederick Busch – this was a beautiful, sad, complex book.

50: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – see previous rant

51: City of Falling Angels by John Berendt – How did I miss this one before I went to Venice? Great true story.

52: The Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore – sad, hysterically funny and wonderful

I already started my 53^rd book, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford – on my new Kindle! Yes. The world is coming to an end as you may have feared. I still have quite a few books on my shelf, and I will never stop buying books, but the new kindle is so cute! Anyway, thanks to anyone who read this blog, and for Lucy who inspired me to read all those books collecting dust on my shelf. I’ve missed Barnes & Noble, Shaws, & Bookends, but I see a light at the end of that bookshelf, so maybe I’ll be back soon! READ MORE BOOKS!

Room by Emma Donoghue

This amazing book is the story of a 5 year old boy and his mother, told in the voice of the boy Jack. We slowly learn that Jack and his Ma live alone in a 11X11 ft. room. Because he doesn't know why, we don't know why, they never go outside or see other people (except the mysterious Old Nick). This room and his Ma are Jack's whole life, he was born there and knows nothing else. She keeps his days busy with games and exercises and a little bit of tv ('so our brains don't rot'). I don't want to give away too much but when we learn, as Jack learns, why they are there your heart will start beating faster and faster and won't slow down until the very end.

This book is going to be the one that everyone talks about, book groups will choose it, Oprah will feature it (if she has the guts.. there is a thinly veiled Oprah-like character in the book who is not portrayed kindly)

Read it, read it...

52 books in 52 weeks..

So that’s that. ... I set out to read a book a week for a year and my year's up! Here they are...

Mudbound
Half Broke Horses
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
America America
Brangelina
Last Night in Twisted River
In a Perfect World
Goldengrove
The Lost Symbol
The Good Life
Remarkable Creatures
Game Change
Too Much Happiness
A Wrinkle in Time & When You Reach Me
Interpreter of Maladies
The White Queen
A Reliable Wife
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Artemus Fowl
The Pact
Lift
Sara’s Key
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Little Bee
Vanishing Acts
The Time Traveler’s Wife
A Gate at the Stairs
Caught
Infidel
Imperfect Birds
The House on Salt Lake Road
Crossing to Safety
Incendiary
The Road
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Operating Instructions
Tinkers
To Kill a Mockingbird
Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On my Pajamas and Found Happiness
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
Island Light
Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life
Gift From the Sea
Freedom
Salem Falls
Anna Karenina
The Art of Keeping Cool
Three Cups of Tea
A Secret Kept
The Hour I First Believed
Shadow Tag
A Gathering of Old Men

A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines

When we lived in Charlotte, NC in the late 1990s an amazing and eye opening event happened one October day. We were invited to a work party with Jim's colleagues at a hunting lodge about 45 minutes outside of town, in the 'sticks' I suppose you could call it. It started in the afternoon and included dinner and partying into the evening (and no we weren't actually hunting).

As dinner wound up and the sun started to go down a few people gathered their things and got ready to go home. We implored them to stay and enjoy the nice warm bonfire. No, they said, incredibly matter of factly, they had to start heading out because they were black and driving nice cars and it wasn't 'smart' for them to be driving in these parts after dark. They would undoubtedly be stopped by the police they said shaking their heads. What was almost more disturbing to this northeastern raised girl, wasn't that they were going to be stopped (which believe me was horrific enough) but that they took it in stride, it was just the way it was in the South, perhaps the price they had to pay for daring to be wealthy African American bankers. This affected me for months afterwards (years I suppose, I still talk about it). In almost the year 2000 this was still happening in our country, anywhere in our country. It made me question our choice of places to live and help me decide we'd leave and move up north as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

I say this because when reading this incredibly moving and powerful little book it's hard to believe that Gaines' story took place in the late 70s and not the 1940s. It takes place in a sugarcane plantation in Louisiana where, while not technically slaves, blacks were beholden to whites for their jobs and their homes. They are beaten, lynched and humiliated for not 'behaving' the way they should. When the story opens a white man lays dead in the grass and when the sheriff is called to investigate he finds a young woman, Candy and about 20 old black men standing over him with guns, each confessing to his murder. They are there to protect one man, whom Candy, one of the owners of the plantation, was practically raised by. She is fiercely loyal and will not give in and let him be arrested.

The old men have spent their entire lives backing down and giving in. One tells the story of his young brother who was in a race with a white man.. "I saw my brother win that race. But he wasn't supposed to win, he was supposed to lose. We all knowed he was supposed to lose. Me, his own brother, knowed he was supposed to lose. He was supposed to lose years ago and because he didn't lose like a nigger is supposed to lose, they beat him. And they beat him and they beat him. And I didn't do nothing but stand there and watch them beat my brother down to the ground."

Many more stories come out of their mouths; of sisters who were raped, land taken away ... 'bused me if I did it right and 'bused me if I did it wrong - my whole life. And i took it. But this is their moment, they were done with running and ready to die over this, knowing that the white man who was murdered had a father who would be on his way to find out who killed his 'boy'.

I first read this book in college in the late 80s... 10 years after the events of the book and 10 years before our experience in Charlotte. It makes me wonder how far we've come, or not come. Eloquently written, this book should be a must read for everyone.

Shadow Tag by Louise Erdrich

Erdrich's words don't often have a lot of flourish, she writes with an unrepentant view of life. This book is the story of the marriage of Irene and Gil. Gil is a somewhat famous Native American painter who has made his career from creating portraits of his wife, also part Native American. After years of living through a tempetious marriage, Irene has fallen out of love with Gil and after finding out he has been reading her diary she decides to keep two diaries: One for him to 'secretly' read and one she keeps in a safe deposit box. The latter of the two tells the truth, the former she uses to manipulate her husband into thinking he's reading secret things about her but in fact she is planting seeds to destroy their marriage.

They are set on a course of destruction that will affect their 3 children as well as their own fates. This book is relatively short in length but deep in detail of the ruination of two people and their marriage. Well worth the read.

At Large and at Small by Anne Fadiman

As you may have guessed, I am a fan of many authors. When I was young, I would find one I liked and then read everything they had written; even the dreck they wrote before they wrote something great, the stuff that gets published after the writer becomes famous. I am not one of those people who reads the same book more than once. I would, but I have so many other books to read on that giant heap, and that just seems too decadent.

Years ago, Anne Fadiman wrote a small collection of essays called Ex Libris, Confessions of a Common Reader. When I read it, I was comforted by the thought that Anne’s family was even more obsessed with books and proper grammar than mine. I remember to this day the idea of her family sitting down to eat in a restaurant, silent until someone found the first typo on the menu. Sadly, I found this to be something we had in common, aside from her obsessive love of books. Anne is the daughter of Clifton Fadiman, who was an author, editor, radio and television host, as well as one of the original judges for the Book of the Month Club. Her perspective on things seems a bit skewed by the quiz show atmosphere that pervaded her growing up, but she is a likable geek, and she made me feel incredibly normal by comparison. I read this book twice, and recommended it to everyone in my family. (I have her other book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down on my pile to be read.)

This newer book, subtitled Familiar Essays, almost picks up where the other left off. In it, the author explains the familiar essay — where a critical essay depends on the author’s expertise (brains), and a personal essay on their experience (heart) — the familiar essay attempts to have equal amounts of both. Fadiman’s brains seem obvious to me, especially in her vast vocabulary that made me wish I had the kindle with the built in dictionary. (What else would I expect from a family that loves sesquipedalians, or very long words?) Her heart is clearly involved, on topics ranging from butterfly catching, ice cream, coffee and arctic explorers. People familiar with Ex Libris will remember her obsession with the arctic, from the “odd shelf” in her library.

This was a tiny book, but not really a quick read. Her essays are filled with facts; I had to stop myself from telling my husband all about it as I read, since I want him to read it next. The design of the book itself is familiar, following the layout of Ex Libris. The illustration and design also call to mind my cherished little set of Winnie the Pooh books. It cries out to be held in your hands and enjoyed. Save the Jonathan Franzen for the kindle.

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

Big book. Literally and in scope. Weighing in at 740 plus pages I thought it would be a challenge to read in a week but turns out.. not so much. This is the story of Caelum and his (3rd wife) Maureen, he's a high school teacher and she's a school nurse. They have left Connecticut to start a new life in Littleton, Colorado, where they both get jobs at Columbine High School. While Caelum is back in CT tending to his dying aunt, Maureen is at school on that fateful day in April of 1999 when Harris and Klebold unleashed their devastating fury. (As an aside, a few years ago I poured through the book, Columbine by Dave Cullem, an almost minute by minute account of the tragedy, not for the faint of heart but an excellent read, giving some understanding to the tragedy)

Maureen was in the library that day, where some of the worst killings occurred, hiding in a cabinet, fearing for her life.. Caelum rushes back not knowing if she is dead or alive. Lamb uses this real tragedy, with real names and facts, along with his fictional characters to great effect. Instead of creating a Columbine-like school shooting, he has chosen to take on what really happened, to give faces to the victims and make their stories real again for us, 10 years later.

Maureen is shaken and in great pain, emotionally and physically after what happened to her, so the 2 of them hobble back to CT to take over his aunt's farm and to try to recover. With their marriage barely surviving and Maureen hooked on pills to numb her pain, their story takes twists and turns, ending up with Maureen in prison for vehicular manslaughter and Caelum on his own on the farm, eventually taking in Katrina 'refugees' as tenants and learning about his roots and family history.

I loved this book, so many timely topics and such thoughtful writing... It's been a while since I've read a Lamb book (in fact this one took him 10 years to write), well worth the wait and obvious struggle for him to produce this gem.