book of the month

cover photo scanned by me

September's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month was chosen by none other than myself. Jack Kerouac's On the Road is a book I read a few years ago but had been meaning to re-read since. Thus why I chose it.

First, let me say that I honestly forgot about the significance of San Francisco in this book! Having just moved to San Francisco myself, I won't lie that it was my favorite thing about this book. I couldn't help but savor the many passages written about its foggy bay, glittering nights, eleven hills, and purple sunsets.

"I suddenly realized I was in California. Warm, palmy air - air you can kiss - and palms. Along the storied Sacramento River on a superhighway; into the hills again; up, down; and suddenly the vast expanse of a bay (it was just before dawn) with the sleepy lights of Frisco festooned across. Over the Oakland Bay Bridge I slept soundly for the first time since Denver; so that I was rudely jolted in the bus station at Market and Fourth into the memory of the fact that I was three thousand two hundred miles form my aunt's house in Paterson, New Jersey. I wandered out like a haggard ghost, and there she was, Frisco - long, bleak streets with trolley wires all shrouded in fog and whiteness."

While I am more than aware of the immense popularity and culture significance of this book, I'm almost afraid to admit that I didn't love it. Don't get me wrong, I didn't not like it, but while I enjoyed the first part of the book, I found that I was tiring of it about halfway through. The initial excitement and thrill of being on the road with the thoughts of Sal Paradise slowly turned monotonous. I also started to wonder if I'm even supposed to like Sal. I don't think I liked his friends; I found Dean Moriarty rather exhausting and annoying. But, am I supposed to like Sal? Is he like his friends or is he different? Or does he only seem likable because he's the narrator?

Yet, I can't completely disregard this book because it had more than its fair share of descriptive imagery:

"...but I preferred reading the American landscape as we went along. Every bump, rise, and stretch in it mystified my longing. In inky night we crossed New Mexico; at gray dawn it was Dalhart, Texas; in the bleak Sunday afternoon we rode through one Oklahoma flat-town after another; at night-fall it was Kansas. The bus roared on."

and:

" As a seaman I used to think of the waves rushing beneath the shell of the ship and the bottomless deeps thereunder - now I could feel the road some twenty inches beneath me, unfurling and flying and hissing at incredible speeds across the groaning continent with that mad Ahab at the wheel."

and:

"And before me was the great raw bulge and bulk of my American continent; somewhere far across, gloomy, crazy New York was throwing up its cloud of dust and brown steam. There is something brown and holy about the East; and California is white like washlines and emptyheaded..."

And I completely understand the urge to just go... and to keep on going. To live that bohemian lifestyle on the road, to feel that freedom of not knowing what's coming next or where you'll sleep or how you'll get your next meal. I think we all dream about that at some point in our lives, though few of us ever follow through. I enjoyed the wacky adventures and the interesting people that Sal encountered along the way, but it lost its luster after awhile and I found myself growing impatient and wanting it to be over. I enjoyed the book much more when Sal was on the road by himself, which ended up being a far too small portion of his adventure.

You can read the rest of the Book Club Bloggers' reviews here.

book of the month

cover photo scanned by me

I know it's late, but here it is! July's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month was Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez. I'd read it before and didn't really like it, so I had no intention of reading it again. But after reading what Katie said here about having similar feelings yet loving it the second time around, I decided to give it another go.

*Spoiler Alert*

Though I still can't say that I absolutely loved everything about the book, I couldn't help but fall for how beautifully written it was. I underlined many many lines about love and death and time, and I'm fighting against sharing all of them here, but I'll resist and only share the ones that directly correlate to my review.

I loved the beginning: the feverish and innocent love between Fermina and Florentino. The first chapters were imbued with flower saturated scents, a perfumed air, and a rosy haze. I was captivated by lines such as:

"Delirious with joy, Florentino Ariza spent the rest of the afternoon eating roses and reading the note letter by letter, over and over again, and the more he read the more roses he ate..."

and

"This was the time when he gave in to his desire to eat the gadrenas that Tránsito Ariza grew in pots on the patio, so that he could know the taste of Fermina Daza. It was also the time when he happened to find in one of his mother's trunks a liter bottle of cologne that the sailors from the Hamburg-American Line sold as contraband, and he could not resist the temptation to sample it in order to discover other tastes of his beloved. He continued to drink from the bottle until dawn, and be became drunk on Fermina Daza..."

One of my favorite parts of the book was, in fact, the title and how "the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera." It reminded me of this project by Dan Estabrook which illustrates that the symptoms of sickness are the same as those of being in love: shortness of breath, loss of appetite, heart rate increase, weakness, fever, chills, sleeplessness, delirium and euphoria.

And so I realized that the reason I didn't like the book the first time had less to do with the beautiful writing and more to do with the characters. I didn't connect to them at all, I had no feeling for them. I didn't find it a "love story of astonishing power" as the cover proclaims. I read it as a work of fiction and nothing more. A story. Something to be appreciated but nothing profound. This is mostly due to the fact that there is no suspense, no sense of finally! We know from the beginning that Florentino will again profess his love and they will get a second chance. I think I enjoyed it less because of that - no hoping, no waiting, no anticipation of that final moment.

In fact, I felt more for the love between Fermina and Dr. Urbino and found it more meaningful than hers and Florentino's ever was.

"In the end they knew each other so well that by the time they had been married for thirty years they were like a single divided being... Together they had overcome the daily incomprehension, the instantaneous hatred, the reciprocal nastiness and fabulous flashes of glory in the conjugal conspiracy. It was the time when they loved each other best, without hurry or excess, when both were the most conscious of and grateful for their incredible victories over adversity. Life would still present them with other mortal trials, of course, but that no longer mattered: they were on the other shore."

Their marriage is consistently described as the happiest years of her life and the many passages about Fermina's grief and loss, empty spaces in her heart and home and bed, unfinished thoughts and unspoken words after Dr. Urbino's death spoke volumes of real love, a lifetime of love between two people. To me, it remains the truest love story in the entire book.

But then... at the end... I got it...

There was something very touching in the slow way they return to each other near the end of their lives instead of the hurried rush of love in their younger days. In the end, I did feel something for Fermina and Florentino and how he came to truly love her for who she was rather than an ideal. In the end, I did feel a sense of finally! and I loved their love more for being leisurely, slow and believable rather than epic, legendary and intense.

"... they no longer felt like newlyweds, and even less like belated lovers. It was as if they had leapt over the arduous calvary of conjugal life and gone straight to the heart of love. They were together in silence like an old married couple wary of life, beyond the pitfalls of passion, beyond the brutal mockery of hope and the phantoms of disillusion: beyond love. For they had lived together long enough to know that love was always love, anytime and anyplace, but it was more solid the closer it came to death."

You can read the rest of the Book Club Bloggers' reviews here.

likening harry potter to the lord of the rings

The final installment of the Harry Potter films comes out today. Normally I would've spent this entire week feeling anxious and excited and dying for Friday to finally come. But I haven't. Let me diverge a bit and attempt to explain why (and to reveal what a dork I really am):

When The Lord of the Rings came out in 2001, I fell absolutely and completely in love. Other than reading The Hobbit, I knew nothing about the book series and thus nothing about the film other than the fact that I'd previously harbored a crush on Elijah Wood. I clearly remember what I felt the first time I saw it. I even remember what I was wearing: blue jeans, a white cable-knit sweater and my brown hair swept up in a hair clamp. I remember feeling myself falling wholly into the story and its characters. I remember grasping how serious and how real it was to me. Even during the comic relief parts of the film (specifically with Merry and Pippin), the audience would laugh and I specifically remember thinking, "No. Don't laugh! This is serious." After the movie was over, I remember my sister and I going home and telling my mom all about the movie. We couldn't shut up about it. (I must also confess that part of me was unreasonably mad at her for a long time for loving it as much as I did. I didn't think that anyone could love it as much as me. I felt that it was mine.)

It grasped me from the beginning and I couldn't, I wouldn't, let go.

When it was released on video, I bought it and literally watched it every single day for about a week. I even watched it twice in one day. When the special edition was released, I watched that. I read everything about the movies, about the characters, about the actors. I read the first book. I got the soundtrack for my birthday and would spend hours listening to it, falling into it.

I feel I have to at least try my best to explain why I, quite frankly, became obsessed with it. The only way I can really think to explain it is what I keep repeating: that I fell into it. I fell into it so much that my heart ached and my heart soared (the soundtrack was a big part of that) and it completely enraptured me. Enchanted me. Transported me. Mostly, it made me sorrowful. Sorrowful to know that such a perfectly filmed, beautiful story wasn't real. That it was only a figment of someone's imagination. That it could never truly be mine, that I couldn't fall into it any further. Like immersing yourself in a pool of water, but you can only get as far as the bottom, you can't go any further. It probably sounds crazy that I loved something so much because it made me sad. But I think we feel sadder things more deeply.

When the second installment came out, I saw it in theaters four times! I bought the DVD, the special edition DVD, the soundtrack. I watched and listened and continued to be obsessed, in love, etc. When the third film was set to come out, I would cry just watching the trailers and knowing that it was all so close to ending. The movies took up two years of my life and I didn't want it to end, I almost couldn't face it. I received my driver's license the same day the movie premiered and I was more excited about seeing the movie than being a teenager reaching that important milestone equivalent to freedom. I saw it and practically cried the whole time. As anyone who's seen it knows, nothing sad happened in the end. No one died. Good conquered evil. But it was the fact that it ended. I literally sat in my theater seat and bawled heaving sobs as the credits rolled (my friend probably thought I was crazy). I vowed not to see it again, but I had to see it with my sister and then with my best friend.

I never did finish reading the books. I never bought the third film on DVD. I've only seen the entire trilogy once or twice since then. My obsession has dwindled over time and my heart doesn't ache each time I think about it. It all seems so far away and I guess part of me is afraid of watching them again and falling into them. I'd rather not be encompassed by something so much again.

But Harry Potter is an exception. I liken my deep feelings for the wizarding series to my feelings for The Lord of the Rings. Only, I haven't let myself fall into Harry Potter quite as much. Perhaps because it has spanned more than a decade, half of my life, rather than a couple years, it would be rather unhealthy to let myself become obsessed like I did before. My sister reads the entire series every single year and it's something that, as much as I would love to do, I just can't. I know who I am and who I would become if I let myself fall into it so deeply and so frequently. I need to be myself in my own world. Yet, I've definitely had my Harry Potter moments, my obsessions with it. It crept out with the release of each new book and each new film. It's exactly the same with The Lord of the Rings except that I won't fully let myself succumb to it.

Though I will no doubt cry a lot during this last film, I know I will at least be okay with it and I won't wallow for days afterwards that it's ended. Rather than getting too excited and anxious about it, I'm letting it come to me, letting it just happen.

Harry Potter, I truly can't express how much I've loved and enjoyed you. I'm not ready to say goodbye...

Source: boywonder

book of the month

After taking two month's off, I'm finally back with this month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. In a way, the beginning of this book mirrored my own feelings: I was coming back to this book, a book I haven't read in around ten years, and at each turn of the page I remembered. As if it all happened to me so long ago... Maybe it's my own preoccupation with slowly growing older and coming to terms with the fact that my own days of carefree youth and schooling are over. That I, too, am at the point in my life where I will visit the giants of my childhood and will feel that nostalgic tug and surprise that it was so long ago even though it feels like only yesterday. Or maybe it's the infectious way that Knowles begins his story. Either way, I couldn't help but be drawn in...

*Spoiler Alert*

In whole, A Separate Peace is a coming-of-age novel driven by the war that is going on beyond the walls of Devon School, beyond "the fringe of the last and greatest wilderness." It's the summer of 1942 and the boys of Gene and Phineas' year are the last of the innocent:

"The people in the world who could be selfish in the summer of 1942 were a small band, and I'm glad we took advantage of it."

Aware that they will most likely be drafted when they turn eighteen, the war is on the forefront of the boys' minds, yet it's also in the background, underneath. It doesn't wholly feel real yet or affect them in their safe little world. At the moment, they are still "nothing but children playing among heroic men."

"So the war swept over like a wave at the seashore, gathering power and size as it bore on us, overwhelming in its rush, seemingly inescapable, and then at the last moment eluded by a word from Phineas; I had simply ducked, that was all, and the wave's concentrated power had hurtled harmlessly overhead, no doubt throwing others roughly up on the beach, but leaving me peaceably treading water as before. I did not stop to think that one wave is inevitably followed by another even larger and more powerful, when the tide is coming in."

Yet, little by little the real world encroaches, the war seeps in, destroying their innocence and shattering their lives in little ways.

To me, the intrusion of the war stands out much more than Gene's action against Phineas. I understand that it's the main part of the book, the shocking incident that propels the story onward. But I felt the tree was only the beginning of the great war looming around them. Gene was perhaps its first victim, leading him to act against his one true, good friend in an understandable moment of jealousy. Then it took Leper, clouding his mind and his decency. And then it took the other boys who put Gene on trial. They all knew. They all suspected. They all came to the realization that innocence was no longer and they acted out, wanting Gene and Phineas to confess what had really happened as it slowly dawned on them that such a thing really could happen.

The war altered them, made them men and took them away from their "afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace."

You can read the other Book Club Bloggers' reviews here.

i dream of africa

Something about Africa has always stolen my heart... I've long been held sway by books such as Out of Africa, West with the Night, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood and Scribbling the Cat: Travels with an African Soldier and the movies I Dreamed of Africa and Out of Africa.

Something about it... Something about the stories of foreigners seeking to settle in a land that doesn't want to be settled, something about the exotic animals and the vast landscapes, the textures and the burnt colours, the dark people and the infamous safaris...

Someday I will go and I will set up a tent and I will fall in love with her, with Africa.

Source: 1. Anthropologie 2. Vogue via Pinterest 3. Mikael Jansson via FGR 4. Goodreads 5. Pinterest 6. Pinterest

a dark green stain

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, Atonement is one of my favorite films. It's one of the most beautifully filmed and beautifully styled and most wonderfully cast movies I've ever seen. I could watch it over and over again (and I have).

So when I finally decided to read the book a few weeks ago, I was skeptical: afraid that I wouldn't enjoy the book because it wouldn't have the same visual stunning-ness as the movie. A friend assured me that the book is also very visual, very descriptive. So I read it, and fell in love... The movie was extremely faithful to the book, and it might've helped that I visualized scenes from the movie every step of the way, but I also enjoyed the insight into each character that doesn't necessarily come across in the film adaptation.

And my friend was right: the novel was very descriptive, very visual, very fluid. This line struck out at me (I can't get the image of the green stain trailing down his spine out of my head):

Source: 1. Eleonore Bridge 2. and 3. una.knipsolina

to read

These are some very very pretty covers of some books on my to-read list. As you can tell from this previous post, I love books with pretty covers. Sometimes, I decide to read a book based solely on its cover art! I also have a rather bad habit of buying a book because of its cover, but I've been doing very well at resisting lately.

These books are only ten of a steadily growing list of books I want to read. As of this moment, there are 53 on the list! Which is why I have made a rather tough decision:

I decided not to read this month's Book Club Bloggers book of the month. I've been a member since its inception, reading and reviewing every single book (except for one) every month. I also gave myself a goal to read at least 50 of the books on a Best 100 Novels list as part of 24 Things To Do Before I Turn 24. That, combined with the book club, hasn't given me much of a chance to read all the other books I want to read. So it is with a heavy heart that I take this month off and probably next month too. But I promise I won't be gone for long! I love the Book Club Bloggers and I deeply hope that Rachael, the blogger who chose this month's book, isn't offended! My decision was in no way personal!

For those of you interested, this month's book was A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. You can find the links to all the reviews here. (I do plan on reading the book someday!)

Source: 1. One Hundred Years of Solitude 2. The Uncoupling 3. Rebecca 4. Becoming Jane Eyre 5. The Blind Contessa's New Machine 6. Swamplandia! 7. Wuthering Heights 8. An Object of Beauty 9. Vile Bodies 10. On Beauty

on missing almost everything

As part of my 24 Things to do Before I Turn 24, I've been busy working my way through watching all of these 100 Best Movies and reading half of these 100 Best Novels. Meanwhile, I've added numerous books and movies and shows to my to-read and to-watch lists. Movies and books and shows that I'm genuinely interested in but, for the most part, have gone unread and unwatched because I've been too busy getting through the other lists.

It's taken a lot of time to do and, while some of those books and movies were surprisingly worthwhile, I found that I really didn't care for a lot of them. I would even complain about having to watch a movie or read a book that I already knew I wouldn't like. A coworker didn't understand why I would put myself through it, that life is too short to waste on things I don't like. I argued that it would make me more well-read, more worldly, more scholarly or what have you.

And on top of all of that, on top of all of the lists of things I feel I should complete and all the lists that I want to complete, I realize that I will never be able to read every book or see every movie! Every now and then that realization hits me like a blunt force to my chest. I become almost short of breath to know that there is a book out there that I would absolutely love but that I know nothing about.

I thought I was alone in this until I read an article via even*cleveland called "The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything." It might look like a long article, but please take the time to read it if you're at all interested. After reading it, I don't necessarily feel better in the fact that I will miss out on so much, but I do feel okay about it.

In conclusion, while it's been an enlightening experience, I should go back to reading and watching the things that pop out at me and that spark an interest in me, the things that jump out at me over and over to the point that I feel I'm meant to do. The way I did it before...

book of the month

This month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month was Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. I was rather proud of myself because I finished the book and wrote the review in early March only to find that I accidentally deleted the post! Argh! So here goes, as much as I can remember:

I have seen the movie countless times and have always loved it, so I was very excited to finally get a chance to read the book! Like most adaptations, the movie doesn't even compare to the book. Somehow it doesn't capture the same insight, wit and wry humor. At least, not in the same way. (Honestly, I could quote this entire book...)

Stories told by the troubled or depressed have always greatly interested me. Books like The Bell Jar, Prozac Nation, and now Girl, Interrupted. I love delving into psyches and learning what it is that makes someone feel a certain way. Why are they so depressed? What triggers it? How did it happen? Is there really anything "wrong" with them, after all?

I have to admit, the reason that I love these books is that, in a way, I can so easily relate to the dark, unhappy side of these girls (honestly, can't we all?). I've found that my own thoughts aren't that different. I tend to be rather introverted, shy and observant of all that surrounds me. I used to feel that I was always on the outside looking in, on the peripheral, where everything is blurry. I've had really low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts in the past (don't worry, that was long ago!). Though, like Susanna, it was half-hearted:

"And I could have done what I did do, which was go onto the street and faint. Fifty aspirin is a lot of aspirin, but going onto the street and fainting is like putting the gun back in the drawer."

All in all, the book is a memoir told from the point of view of a girl who has been committed to a mental hospital. A girl who was put there after only a twenty-minute observation. A girl who has a sobering view of everyone in the place, yet she can still understand and almost relate. A girl who clearly doesn't belong there. Or does she?

The book begs the questions: Where is the line? How close am I to slipping into that parallel universe? Who has the right to decide what it is that makes a person crazy?

Was Susanna ill? Or was she just a girl, interrupted?

It's such a fine line.

the great gatsby

I just finished reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, and I am left speechless and in complete and utter understanding of why this is considered to be one of the best novels of the 20th century.

As usual, words fail me as I try to describe what it is that I love about this book. The way that Fitzgerald describes everything is so magical and liquid, it's best to leave it to him. Here is a quote that I can't get out of my head, I can see it so clearly:

book of the month

This month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month was Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. I read it once before about six years ago and decided now was a good chance to re-visit it. Even though I'm the one that made this month's selection, I've found that it's the hardest review to write.

*Spoiler Alert*

I remember loving this book the first time around, but I found that I only liked it this time. Maybe because I already knew what was going to happen and it didn't hold the same magic for me as it did before. I remember being in awe of the idea of ice-nine and the destruction it would cause if it really existed - destruction spreading like blood through veins, from oceans to rivers to creeks to rain to life.

However, I will always love the way Vonnegut wrote this book - very fragmentary and to the point with seemingly random things that happen to the narrator. It's a fun, fast-paced and easy read full of wit and dark humor. I love when an author can speak volumes in only a few words. Cat's Cradle may seem a bit chopped and effortless, but underneath is a rather profound story.

The meaning of Cat's Cradle isn't hard to figure out: "See the cat? See the cradle?" It's all about how things are never really what they seem.

One other thing that really stuck out for me this time, which makes me ashamed that it went completely over my head before, was the irony of the story: it starts with the narrator writing a book about the end of the world, though he's actually referring to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. The atomic bomb: what weapon was or could ever be worse than that? And yet, the story unfolds and we realize it isn't the worst by far, because ice-nine exists. Very ironic...

So this is a short, simple review for a short, simple book. I won't bother continuing to stumble along trying to explain the insightfulness of Cat's Cradle, though I will leave you with one quote that really stuck with me:

"So I said good-bye to government,
And I gave my reason:
That a really good religion
Is a form of treason."

cloud atlas

There's a rumor abound that Cloud Atlas, one of my all-time favorite books, is being turned into a movie with James McAvoy (eek!) and Natalie Portman (eek!)

Source: Amazon

on beauty

Speaking of pretty book covers, I have fallen in love with this gorgeous cover of Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I'd never heard of it before Sami recommended it to me, but I love it for the cover alone. I don't care if I end up liking it or not!

And the best part? It was absolutely free through the coolest website ever, PaperBackSwap. (A huge thanks to Laura for telling me about it!)

Source: Amazon

the old man and the sea

I loved this book so much... I think it touches that part of me that wants to be a lighthouse keeper or live a life at sea or work the land. Much the same reason I loved The Summer Book and Bella Tuscany so much.

book of the month

This month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month was One Day. I really enjoyed this book and couldn't help but get pulled into the world of Em and Dex, Dex and Em.

*Spoiler Alert*

This was a very fast-paced, easy read. I even found myself literally laughing out loud at some parts! It was fun, smart and sexy but also profound and poignant. There were so many missed calls, unspoken thoughts, unsent letters, and missed opportunities over the years.

The sexual tension between Emma and Dexter really drove the story, making me wonder when they would get together, how they would get together, if they would together. But after awhile the tension wasn't there so much and the book focused more on growing up.

I'm the age that Emma and Dexter were when the book first started, a young 23 years old, so much life ahead of you, feeling your dreams are still possible and easily attainable. But One Day shows the cruel reality of how fast life can pass you by. You think you have all the time in the world, you're young with the world at your feet. One day you've graduated college and the next thing you know you're 30 years old and you haven't nearly lived the life you thought you would.

In this regard I related to Emma so much more than Dexter. She was a smart, promising young woman, lacking in self-confidence and completely unaware of how amazing she truly was. But she got stuck along the way, working in fast food for a few years, teaching for a few, but never getting around to actually writing. I sympathized with her, completely understanding how you can get stuck working a mediocre job.

For the most part I generally disliked Dexter. I felt that I couldn't relate to him in any way. But then he would go and think something or do something and I couldn't help but feel for the guy. He had a good heart and good intentions but then he would just get stupid.

Eventually, Emma and Dexter do end up together. They even end up married. They end up successful in both of their jobs. But there were three more years left before the end of the book. Which had me wondering if maybe the ending wasn't that they got together, but something else. What was it all heading towards? What was the true meaning of this one day, July 15th of each year?

And then it was heartbreaking. It literally took my breath away when Emma died. It really got to me for some reason, how she was just gone so instantly, when everything was finally working out for her. She was writing sequels for her successful book series, she was married to her best friend, she was beautiful and confident... And then...

I keep hearing in my head what Emma would say. Some flippant remark like, "Are you kidding me? I actually died? How tragic."

It would be easy to say that it was all for nothing. How could she just die after seventeen years of trying so hard? But it wasn't for nothing. It was for Dexter.

the best in books

Taking a cue from fellow self-proclaimed book whore, Samantha, I'm sharing with you my favorite books from 2010. I actually read 39 books last year, but these are only 18 of the ones I thought were the best. (I'm a sucker for super cool book covers, can't you tell?)

Have you read any of these? What are your favorites from the past year?

Oh, and if you're curious to know my number one pick: Contact by Carl Sagan.

1. St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves 2. The Shadow of the Wind 3. The Secret History 4. Norwegian Wood 5. The Bloody Chamber 6. West With the Night 7. An Education 8. A Field Guide to Getting Lost 9. Nights at the Circus 10. Pride and Prejudice 11. The Bell Jar 12. Contact 13. The Bone People 14. Bella Tuscany 15. The Tent 16. The Swan Thieves 17. The Sacred Book of the Werewolf 18. The Summer Book 

Source: Book Cover Images via Goodreads

book of the month

First of all, I want to say how much I loved this month's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. It's a magical little book, full of the texture of wild nature and the leisure of slow-paced life imbued with a "grey and yellow" atmosphere that is so tangibly written that you feel yourself there. Perhaps I love it because I've always secretly dreamed of living a life somewhere quiet, doing something simple and with my hands. Such as keeping a lighthouse, farming the land, or fishing at sea and living on my own quiet island. I dream of waking up before the sun, taking pleasure in the quiet dawns before anyone else has awoken, watching the sunrise every morning. I dream of growing my own food and feeling the bodily soreness that comes with such painstaking labor. I dream of coinciding with nature, wearing Wellies and going out in the rain instead of quivering inside. I dream of watching the insects and animals and perhaps sketching them from a scientific as well as artistic point of view. I dream of a simple but hard life such as this, one I've never known and am probably too lazy and weak to ever really enjoy as much as I think I would. This book arises these dreams in me...

But back to the book...

*Spoiler Alert*

(Not that anything I say will actually ruin the story since their really isn't much of a story that can be ruined. But perhaps I'll say too much, reveal too much of the magic that would've been found on your own.)

It's a story of a little girl named Sophia and her grandmother who live on an island in the gulf of Finland, coming every Summer and leaving every Fall. It's a simple story, possibly simplicity at its best. It's told in a very straight-forward manner yet loaded with little jewels of wisdom that pop up here and there. 

In fact, The Summer Book is more like a collection of short stories rather than one long sweeping novel. It's told in little episodes that occur throughout the Summer between Sophia and Grandmother. And Sophia and Grandmother is where the magic lies.

The only other main character in this story is Papa, Sophia's father and Grandmother's son, but he's really more of a secondary character who's always there, but only in the background as more of a silent comfort who never speaks throughout the whole book. The story is all about the little girl and the old woman, two people with vast oceans of time and experience between them but who are alike because of this - both too young or too old to really be on their own. They are each other's playmates, co-conspirators, comforts. 

The conversations between the two are rather funny but also touching, often wise. In "The Cat" Sophia says "It's funny about love. The more you love someone, the less he likes you back." wherein she speaks volumes but merely about the cat who "was flattened with hugs, endured them politely, and climbed back into the dish box. He was entrusted with burning secrets and merely averted his yellow gaze."

Grandmother often has advice for young Sophia, such as in "The Neighbor" where she says: 

" 'No well-bred person goes ashore on someone else's island when there's no one home. But if they put up a sign, then you do it anyway because it's a slap in the face.'

" 'Naturally,' Sophia said, increasing her knowledge of life considerably." 

But then little Sophia has wisdom of her own when she talks about a worm cut in two and what happens with each half: 

"I think they looked at each other and thought they looked awful, and then crawled away from each other as fast as they could. And then they started to think. They realized that from now on life would be quite different, but they didn't know how, that is, in what way... Presumably, everything that happened to them after that only seemed like half as much, but this was also a sort of relief, and then, too, nothing they did was their fault any more, somehow. They just blamed each other. Or else they'd say that after a thing like that, you just weren't yourself anymore... It can probably remember it's other half which went first and made all the decisions... Should I go on following and never have to make any important decisions, or should I be the one who always knows best, until I come apart again? ...But maybe the front end thinks it's nice not having anything to drag around behind it... Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment." 

Repeat:  

"Nothing is easy when you might come apart in the middle at any moment."

book of the month

(I do realize that I'm submitting this review before it's due, but seeing as I'll be out of town the next few days, I'm posting it early!)

"This is a story for sophisticated people, like you." 

For November's Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month, the novel Little Bee was selected. We were instructed not to read anything about the book beforehand: no reviews, no descriptions, no hints, not even the back of the book! So I diligently obeyed and delved into the book.

What follows are my thoughts, which will spoil the story if you haven't read it. But if you're expecting to get a summary and description of characters, you won't find it. This review is for people who have read the book.

*Spoiler Alert* 

"We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived." 

Overall it was really good: a very easy read, fast-paced and full of conversation. There are only a handful of chapters and they alternate back and forth between Little Bee's point of view and Sarah's. I liked Little Bee immensely, I loved the way she told her story, a very sad story yet sprinkled with humor. It took me a while to warm up to Sarah. At first I really liked her and was devastated by the suicide of her husband but when the story starts to unfold and I found out that she'd actually cheated on him, it made it really hard for me to feel as sorry for her. (But that's a personal thing: I'm always uncomfortable reading about infidelity because being faithful and true to the one you love is a big deal to me and I just can't relate to a character who is like that.) But I slowly accepted that not everyone is perfect and that they shouldn't be. I shouldn't dislike Sarah's character simply because of that.

It seems that every time the story starts to stray a little from the past horrors and into the present, Little Bee thinks of how to kill herself in each and every situation in case "the men come." Don't get me wrong, I did not dislike the book because of this (far from it). It's a hard book to read, it should be a hard book to read. The story is not a happy one, but it is an important one. In fact, this is one of those rare stories that starts sad and ends happy (or actually more bittersweet than "happy").

Basically, this is one of those books that could start long controversial, maybe even uncomfortable, discussions. A book that makes you think "would I cut off my finger to save a strange African girl?" It poses lots of questions, lots of heartache. But it's very powerful and wonderfully written. I am really glad I got to read Little Bee's story!

There are several snippets that I would like to quote from the book, but I think this one of a conversation between Little Bee and Batman was my favorite: 

"He said, 'That is the Joker, isn't it?'
'No Charlie. That is the prime minister.'
'Is he a goody or a baddy?'
I thought to myself.
'Half the people think he is a goody and the other half think he is a baddy.'
Charlie giggled. 'That's silly,' he said.
'That is democracy,' I said. 'If you did not have it, you would want it.'" 

Source: Chris Cleave

book of the month

Because I have so many books on my to-read list, I never get the chance to read the same book twice, let alone one of my all-time favorites such as Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpha Lahiri. So imagine my excitement when Molly of A Foreign Land chose this book for October’s Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month! I was looking forward to getting a second chance to luxuriate in Lahiri’s elegant prose. 

Lahiri is one of those rare writers who can say so much in so few words. And it’s strange because not much happens in her stories as far as action goes; you’re not sitting on the edge of your seat anticipating what will happen next. And yet, for me, I am always intensely interested in what the characters do and how they think and feel. I couldn’t put it down. 

I hate to have to quote the back of the book in what is supposed to be my own personal review, but I think this describes the collection of short stories in a way that I cannot: 

“Filled with quiet astonishments… Here is a brave new voice, laced with elegance and compassion.” 

– Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 

With that being said, I will now proceed to answer the questions that were posed as a sort of reading guide:

*Spoiler Alert!* 

1. What characterizes the sense of community in both the stories set in India and stories set in the U.S.? What maintains that sense, and what disrupts it? 

Being a foreigner seems to either strengthen or disrupt the sense of community. In my opinion, the sense of community in these stories was very small, hardly noticeable at all. For the most part, all the main characters seemed to live on the fringes, outside looking in. Or at times they were amongst it, on the inside looking out, but still alone, lonely. 

2. In Interpreter of Maladies, visitors to Konarak find the Chandrabhaga River dried up, and they can no longer enter the Temple of the Sun, "for it had filled with rubble long ago..." What other instances and images does Lahiri present of the collapse, deterioration, or passing of once-important cultural or spiritual values? 

In "A Temporary Matter" she presents the dissolution of a marriage; in "A Real Durwan"  she presents the deterioration of a once luxurious life of wealth and health; in both "Mrs. Sen's" and "The Third and Final Continent" she presents the passing of cultural and spiritual values: Mrs. Sen still holds onto her beautiful saris though she has nowhere to wear them and she still yearns for the fresh fish she used to eat in India, while the young student in the final story is thrown into the contemporary life of America while still married to a woman who was arranged as his wife, a woman who still wears saris and eats with her hands. 

3. Was the ending of “A Temporary Matter” a surprise to you? What elements of the story lead you to believe that it will end differently than it does? What elements foreshadow the actual ending? 

When I am reading a love story, or any story about a couple in love, I automatically put my boyfriend and myself in their place, whether or not our situation is alike in any way. So of course I hoped that Shukumar and Shoba would work through it and fall back in love, even if it was just to fulfill my own ideal. At first I felt that the nights of confession were a way for them to start speaking again, but looking back I realize that they only served as stepping-stones to make that last ultimate "confession." 

4. Lahiri has said, "As a storyteller, I'm aware that there are limitations in communication." What importance in the stories do miscommunication and unexpressed feelings have? 

The importance of miscommunication and unexpressed feelings in these stories is glaring: How well do we really know a person? How much do they keep hidden, unspoken? How much more do we know about a wife or husband (arranged or not) from a stranger who visits every week, from the woman who babysits us every day, from the elusive lover, from the woman living on the steps outside our home, or from the landlady we exchange routine pleasantries with?

book of the month

I hate to do this... I hate to skip over something or not be a part of a project completely... But I have to admit that I didn't read the September Book Club Bloggers Book of the Month. I know, you're disappointed in me, aren't you?

I promise I meant to read it! But I kept putting it off because it didn't seem that interesting and I wasn't really looking forward to reading another young adult novel (The Giver was great and I used to say it was one of my favorites, but after rereading it in August, I realized I now yearn for something more adult and in-depth.)

I also got the due date for the review mixed up, so I would've been late anyway... But the day I finally went to the library to get it, it of course wasn't there! I know, I know, it's my fault for waiting so long and it's no excuse! At first I was going to read it and then write the review later, but now I've decided not to. I keep checking the status online and it's still checked out! Plus, it doesn't seem fair to the people who finished it on time and now I feel it will just overlap with this month's book.

So, I'm letting myself off the hook just this once. Please don't be mad!

You can read everyone else's reviews here.

Source: Maniac Magee