Serenity of Books

What is the world's story about?

2010-02-07T12:59:00.000-08:00

At first i was not too sure about this book. I disliked so many of the characters in the beginning. I didn't know what Steinbeck was trying to get across. However, I always wanted to find out more. And in the end I loved the story. I love Lee. Caleb is one of the most interesting characters I have ever met in a novel. This is definitely a book I wish I had been able to read in school and discuss with a class along the way. All this symbolism and these various themes- I am sure I missed half of it. I kind of want to go read the Old Testament now to piece a few more things together (I've never read it! gasp). There is a quote on page 324 (of my version) and I feel that most of the time I was reading this book like Samuel, whereas it needed to be read the way Tom would read it.

"And the books that came into the house, some of them secretly- well, Samuel rode lightly on top of a book and he balanced happily among ideas the way a man rides white rapids in a canoe. But Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands."

I want to send this book to my little brother, who struggles, well, with a lot of things, but maybe it would help him see he has a choice to find the good in himself, the good in others.

From Chapter 34:
"A child may ask, "What is the world's story about?" And a grown man or woman may wonder, "What way will the world go? How does it all end, and while we're at it, what's the story all about?"

I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught- in their lives, in their thoughts, in the hungers and ambitions, in their rice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity- in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well- or ill?

...We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing in the world is."

Caleb was named after a character in this book...

2009-12-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

Let's read it! Meet you back here on Feb. 1st!

Netherland.

2009-12-01T12:25:00.000-08:00

Tap, tap. Anyone still there??

Guess what? I just finished Netherland.

Except I didn't really read it. I mean, I sort of did, but I guess I kind of skimmed it after a while. So I guess I can't really get credit for reading it.

I read the first 75 pages or so & decided that I didn't love it. Or maybe even like it. I mean, O'Neill is clearly a strong writer. Obviously. But I was having a bad week, & I didn't really have the tolerance / patience to finish something I didn't really love in that very moment, so I skimmed through & grabbed the major plot points, probably missing out on the essential parts of the book in the process.

But I like what Heidi & Lindsey said about it. Especially what Heidi said about Hans feeling like a ghost. Exactly. The whole book just felt so grey & blasé.

I was just frustrated, I guess. Frustrated at how their relationship unraveled, so seemingly apathetically. How does that happen? I never want it to happen to me & my own. It makes my stomach hurt to think about it.

******************

What should we read next? Let's pick up again, yes? My mom is loving The Help right now, but I'm just sort of feeling out of in in terms of books to read. I feel like it's been a bad reading year for me & I want to change that.

Maybe we should look at the original list we did a year ago?

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

2009-09-17T13:25:00.001-07:00

I read this book about a month ago! Yikes, I had a lot more to say about it then..., thankfully Kathryn's post provided somewhat of a refresher for me (I made a brief comment on her post below).

Some favorites moments/thoughts/sentences:

(P 161) When the charming Ozu sends a book to Renee she describes it as "a fine edition bound in navy-blue leather of a coarse texture that is very wabi." And then goes on to define wabi as 'an understated form of beauty, a quality of refinement masked by a rustic simplicity.' I just loved the word wabi and what it stood for. Have you ever come across such objects? If you have, you know how perfect the word wabi fits in a way that no English word can. I think?

(p162) Paloma on intelligent people. Maybe this just makes me feel better about myself?

"I'm going to say something really banal, but intelligence, in itself, is neither valuable nor interesting. Very intelligent people have devoted their lives to the question of the sex of angels, for example. But many intelligent people have a sort of bug: they think intelligence is an end in itself. They have one idea in mind, to be intelligent, which is really stupid." I don't know... pointless thesis papers came to mind? Not all, but some. I like that whole paragraph.

(p. 188) Paloma on teenagers (this reminded me of the "cool" kids in high school).

"And secondly, a teenage who pretends to be an adult is still a teenager. If you imagine that getting high at a party and sleeping around is going to propel you into a state of full adulthood, that's like thinking that dressing up as an Indian is going to make you an Indian. And thirdly, it's a really weird way of looking at life to want to become an adult by imitating everything that is most catastrophic about adulthood... Lastly, teenagers think they're adults when in fact they're imitating adults who never really made it into adulthood and who are running away from life."

(p. 215) How toilet paper defines are wealth, from Renee (and whole-heartily agreed by me!)

"The toilet paper, too, is a candidate for sainthood. I find this sign of wealth far more convincing than any Maserati or Jaguar. What toilet paper does for people's derrieres contributes considerably more to the abyss between the classes than a good many external signs." So true, so true. And while we're speaking of the toilet, didn't you love the laughter between Renee and Ozu over his music-making toilet flusher? Made me love Ozu even more...

(p. 248) Renee on using intelligence to serve others. The whole passage is great, but...

"The only thing that matters is your intention: are you elevating thought and contributing to the common good, or rather joining the ranks in a field of study whose only purpose is its own perpetuation, and only function the self reproduction of a sterile elite -- for this turns university into sect."

Anyone else besides Kathryn and me read this one?

I kind of want to read it again. Like Kathryn, I started out thinking the book was pretentious and trying too hard. In the end, I loved it.

Netherland: Thoughts on Hans

2009-09-17T13:11:00.000-07:00

I was just flipping through Netherland and wanted to share a couple things that I had marked.

I think this is what makes me sympathetic to Hans...

p.82-83 "Perhaps the relevant truth--and it's one whose existence was apparent to my wife, and I'm sure to much of the world, long before it became apparent to me--is that we all find ourselves in temporal currents and that unless you're paying attention you'll discover, often too late, that an undertow of weeks or of years has pulled you deep into trouble."

I loved his description of the DMV on the following page (which is so true!)...

p 85 "Two of the, women in their thirties, screamed with laughter by a photocopying machine, but as soon as they reached their positions at the counter they wore faces of sullen hostility. One could understand why, for assembled before them was a perpetually reinforced enemy, its troops massing relentlessly on the hard pew-like benches. Many of those seated were hunched forward with hands clasped and heads bowed, raising their eyes only to follow the stupendous figures..."

And then there was a line I really loved, but I can't find the paper I wrote it on... Hm. I'll be back.

Netherland

2009-09-03T14:21:00.000-07:00

Anybody finished with Netherland yet? I may be the only one but I didn't love it, so I kind of want to do my post on it and move on.

{warning- spoilers}
I thought O'Neill was a fascinating writer. But the main character, Hans, was completely unmotivating and unmotivated. He drove me crazy. I did like hearing about his relationships with people in his life, and stories of his youth, those were my favorite parts of the book. However, then I felt even more annoyed that he so easily let the important things slip out of his life. Even his effort at restoring his family in the end seemed subpar. Chuck was obviously shady and I don't understand how Hans was so naive to it until the end. Was his distractedness and lack of passion a result of 9/11? A result of being a foreigner in Manhattan? Hans seemed like a ghost floating through the city and life and doing what others told him to do (Rachel and Chuck, primarily). I would have thought experiencing something like that would make one cling to and fight for loved ones more dearly.

A few passages I marked. necause they way they described certain moments in relationships was so very real to me:
"And after Mama's cremation I could not rid myself of the notion that she had been placed in the furnace of memory even when alive and, by extension, that one's dealings with others, ostensibly vital, at a certain point become dealings with the dead." (pg 89)

"For my comings and goings were frightening mysteries to my three-year-old son. My arrival, however closely anticipated, startled him; and from our first moment together he would be filled with a dread of my departure, which he could not comprehend of situate in time. He feared that any minute I might be gone; and always the thing he most feared would come to pass." (pg 118)

"But in the taxi home, there's an epilogue of sorts: my wife, mooning out of the window at rainy Regent's Park, says, "God do you remember those sirens?" and still, looking away, she reaches for my hand and squeezes it.
Strange how such a moment grows in value over a marriage's course. We gratefully pocket each of them, these sidewalk pennies, and run with them to the bank as if creditors were banging on the door. Which they are, one comes to realize." (pg 183)

Barbery.

2009-08-24T15:55:00.001-07:00

Loved, loved, loved this book.

But I so hated the first 50 pages. I really did. I thought it was pretentious, that it was just trying too hard to be fancy & philosophical & unique.

But then something happened, & I just fell in love. I think the characters suddenly became human for me. I finally deciphered who was who, & how they fit together. And then - I couldn't put it down. I finished it in a few hours. I thought it was such a beautiful story with such a real ending.

One of my favorite snippets, from Paloma -

In any case, this is true at our place. If you want to understand my family, all you have to do is look at the cats. Our two cars are fat windbags who eat designer kibble & have no interesting interaction with human beings. They drag themselves from one sofa to the next & leave their fur everywhere, & no one seems to have grasped that they have no affection for any of us. The only purpose of cats is that they constitute mobile decorative objects, a concept which I find intellectually interesting, but unfortunately our cats have such dropping bellies that this does not apply to them (pg. 51).

I loved Paloma's wit, as unlikely as it is that any 12 year old would be so engaging. But I thought that she was just clever - & we share a distaste for cats.

Another favorite deep thought from Paloma -

If people could climb higher in the social hierarchy in proportion to their incompetence, I guarantee the world would not go round the way it does. But that's not even the problem. What his sentence means isn't that incompetent people have found their place in the sun, but that nothing is harder or more unfair than human reality: humans live in a world where it's words & not deeds that have power, where the ultimate skill is mastery of language. This is a terrible thing because basically we are primates who've been programmed to eat, sleep, reproduce, conquer & make our territory safe, & the ones who are most gifted at that, the most animal types among us, always get screwed by the others, the fine talkers, despite these latter being incapable of defending their own garden or bringing a rabit home for dinner or procreating properly. Humans live in a world where the weak are dominant. This is a terrible insult to our animal nature, a sort of perversion or a deep contradiction (57).

From Renee -

From their box hidden behind the sheets at the back of the wardrobe I have brought out 2 earrings inherited from my mother-in-law, the monstrous Yvette - antique silver, dangling, with 2 pear-shaped garnets. I made 6 attempts before I managed to clip them properly to my earlobes & now must live with teh sensation of having 2 potbellied cats hanging from my distended lobes. 54 years without jewelry do not prepare one for the travails of dressing up. I smeared my lips with 1 layer of "Deep Carmine" lipstick that I had bought 20 years ago for a cousin's wedding. The longevity of such a useless item, when valiant lives are lost every day, will never cease to confound me. I belong to the 8% of the world population who calm their apprehension by drowning it in numbers (301).

I love that after all of this preparation, after all of her anxiety, after not being recognized by the other tenants in the building, that Ozu says, I would recognize you anywhere. I really enjoyed seeing their love story develop, their simple friendship, two people with such sad hearts who are able to find happiness in each other.

The ending. Sigh.

Thinking back on it, this evening, with my heart & my stomach ll like jelly, I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that's it, an always within never.

Don't worry Renee, I won't commit suicide & I won't burn a thing. Because from now on, for you, I'll be searching for those moments of always within never. Beauty, in this world (325).

I guess that in the end, I wanted Ozu & Renee to get married & adopt Paloma. That would have just been perfect, right? A happy, incredibly brilliant little family.

It didn't work out that way, but I think that there was redemption. And that makes me feel okay. Bittersweet perhaps, but okay.

I'm going to go read Netherland now.

discuss?

2009-08-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

So, I'm leaving on vacation and think I will be able to finish it on the many-hour roadtrip on the California 5 freeway.

What about everyone else? Could we meet up mid-August? I think this one might lend itself to some great discussions.

Reading.

2009-07-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

Up to Bat / On Deck

Gold star for me.

2009-07-01T07:29:00.001-07:00

I finished it. See, I'm not such a loser book-club-participant after all. All I needed was a nice, long vacation.

I really loved Daughter of Fortune, for a few reasons I think. First, I've realized that I love historical fiction. This counts, right? I've never really studied the California Gold Rush in depth, & it was fascinating to learn about the thousands of people that literally came from all over the world to claim their fortunes, & especially, to start afresh. I was also surprised about the massive amounts of racism that existed between so many different groups. Call me naive, but I just hadn't thought about all of the possibilities before, & just wasn't aware that there was this very real, very massive web of judgment between people. Broadly speaking, that's just really sad. The Civil Rights movement in the United States is such a tiny piece of the puzzle.

Anyway.

Secondly - I closed the book & felt like I had experienced a lifetime with a group of people, that I'd really come to know them as they grew, developed & changed, as their paths crissed & crossed. I felt the same way when I finished East of Eden a few summers ago. I became quite attached to the characters & felt their emotions almost as if they were my own (which explains why I was so depressed after finishing reading The Road).

Finally - I love strong, independent female protagonists. I really, really liked Eliza. While I was frustrated that she wasn't more self aware at her falling in love so passionately with the idea of love, I appreciated the fact that she independent enough to go after what she wanted, on her own in a time when so much less was expected of women.

Rose's story made me sad. Actually, much of the story made me sad. The information we discover about John... Such an amazing opportunity was missed, although I suppose we don't know the rest of the story.

Is any one else finished? Can I keep going? Because I have thoughts (not so profound, but thoughts nonetheless) on Tao & Eliza. And Joaquin. But I'll wait.

Hi, book friends.

2009-06-07T13:45:00.000-07:00

Should we read another? I promise I'll be better.

(Waiting patiently on my bookshelf - Daughter of Fortune.)

Austen Heroine

2009-04-28T13:56:00.000-07:00

Take the Quiz here!

You Are...Elinor Dashwood!

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

I just took the quiz again and I thought I wasn't too Elinor-ish (I said Gwyneth Paltrow would play me in a movie over Emma Thompson, I like a man with a sense of humor, and travel and adventure were my hobbies) yet I got these results once again! Funny. The hidden emotional side is definitely true.

Which one are you?

Austen

2009-04-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

Last night I finished Sense and Sensibility. Reading Austen is such a pleasure. I love her wit and the social commentary on her day. Plus I was all wrapped up in the love stories. Towards the end I sped up my reading because I had to know what in the world was going on with Edward.

Did you know Austen was only 17 when she wrote this book (according to my book jacket)? V. impressive.

What are we reading next?

S&S

2009-04-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a couple chapters of Sense and Sensibility at night (from my pretty version). Something so indulgent about reading in bed...it hasn't been done in a long time. I only spend about 20-30 minutes doing so, but am thoroughly enjoying it and the book!

I love the film version of S&S, but wish I would stop seeing Kate Winslet every time Marianne speaks...though I do love Kate Winslet too.

Anyway, I love how smart and insightful Jane Austen is towards human nature and character.

Regarding romance/love/relationships... are you a Marianne or an Elinor?

Eat meat sparingly?

2009-03-18T08:44:00.000-07:00

(I know we are on the S&S, but before we actually post on that, here's a few more thoughts on our last book.)

The following reconfirms the wisdom taught to eat meat sparingly:

Pollan quotes rancher Rich Blair:

"In my grandfather's time, cows were four or five years old at slaughter. In the fifties, when my father was ranching, it was two or three years old. Now we get there at fourteen to sixteen months."

So basically, from birth to 14/16 months, a calf goes from 80lbs to 1,100 lbs, thanks to a diet of corn, protein, fat supplements and new drugs. No grass. I'm thinking if the human race didn't feel the need to consume meat so often, perhaps greater quality and care would go into rearing cattle.

The following also made me sad:

"Weaning is perhaps the most traumatic time on a ranch for animals and ranchers alike; cows separated from their calves will mope and bellow for days, and the calves, stressed by the change in circumstances and diet, are prone to getting sick. "

Calves are weaned for the following reasons: to allow their mothers to have more calves, and to get the calves ready for the feedlot.

The whole mother/calf separation... I know they are cows, but it makes me sad.

I thought this was kind of sad.

2009-03-10T08:31:00.000-07:00

I was reading about the fast food part, notably how he dissects McDonald's food. I have to admit, I have always been partial to their fries, but could never eat their meat. Glad for that, after what I read. Anyway, Pollan writes about how 1 in every 5 Americans suffers from type 2 diabetes and goes on to say:

"The problem is not limited to America: The United Nations reported that in 2000 the number of people suffering from overnutrition--a billion--had officially surpassed the number suffering from malnutrition--800 million."

How sad is that? I had never thought about it in terms like that... I think I'll feel bad every time I overeat.

I am an omnivore

2009-03-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

"The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own."

I stuck it out and finished The Omnivore's Dilemma. I am glad I did. I was hoping there would be a little more discussion on here about some things in there but I guess it was a little unmotivating for everyone to get into?

My favorite part of the book was reading about Joel Salatin's farm- Polyface. I was fascinated with how everything worked together so perfectly. I would love to buy all my animal products from a farmer like that. It really helped me see the value of eating local (when possible). Pages 257-259 sum it up well (if it wasn't so lengthy I would quote it here).

I have to say I was pretty disappointed with what I read concerning "organic" meats and "free-range" chicken.

Some goals I have made:
Have a vegetable garden once I own a home.
Shop at farmer's markets whenever possible/available.
Buy eggs/meat/dairy from a local source where animals are treated properly (no monocultures, no industrial).
Be flexible.

Spring book?

2009-02-27T12:40:00.001-08:00

Hi friends.

Did we decide on Sense & Sensibility for our next book? I put it up on the sidebar, but if it's not definite, that's okay. I'm thinking that The Omnivore's Dilemma might just be on the back shelf for me for a bit. I just don't have it in me right now, as much as I want to finish it.

Maybe we should say that we should have our next book done by the end of March? I need a deadline, & social pressure to go along with it.

Big Organic

2009-02-25T19:24:00.000-08:00

"So is an industrial organic food chain finally a contradiction in terms? It's hard to escape the conclustion that it is. Of course it is possible to live with contradictions, at least for a time, and sometimes it is necessary or worthwhile. But we ought to at least face up to the cost of our compromises. The inspiration for organic was to find a way to feed ourselves more in keeping with the logic of nature, to build a food system that looked more like an ecosystem that would draw its fertility and energy from the sun. To feed ourselves otherwise was 'unsustainable,' a word that's been so abused we're apt to forget what it very specifically means: Sooner or later it must collapse. To a remarkable extent, farmers succeeded in creating the new food chain on their farms; the trouble began when they encountered the expectations of the supermarket... And so, today, the organic food industry finds itself in a most unexpected, uncomfortable, and yes, unsustainable position: floating on a sinking sea of petroleum." (Pages 183-184)

Blah

2009-02-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

I am having a hard time getting into this book. I need a fascinating story/dialogue to draw me in at night or else I choose sleep instead!

Next month can we pick a classic that none of us have read? Something like Sense and Sensibility? or Middlemarch? Or My Antonia? Or Anna Karenina? Or whatever. I am craving something that I would find on an AP English reading list...

Book 2.

2009-01-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

Buy it here in the US. Or here in the UK.

December book?

2008-12-12T07:29:00.000-08:00

I know we're not quite done with The Book Thief, but I'm just thinking ahead. Does anyone even have time to read a book over the next few weeks? I was thinking about something light & interesting, to bring with me on the plane, etc. These are a few that are on my list right now:

Daughter of Fortune - Isabel Allende

Allende expands her geographical boundaries in this sprawling, engrossing historical novel flavored by four cultures - English, Chilean, Chinese and America. and set during the 1849 California Gold Rush. The alluring tale begins in Valpara!so, Chile, with young Eliza Sommers, who was left as a baby on the doorstep of wealthy British importers Miss Rose Sommers and her prim brother, Jeremy. Now a 16-year-old, and newly pregnant, Eliza decides to follow her lover, fiery clerk Joaquin Andieta, when he leaves for California to make his fortune in the gold rush. Enlisting the unlikely aid of Tao Chi'en, a Chinese shipboard cook, she stows away on a ship bound for San Francisco. Tao Chi'en's own story, richly textured and expansively told, begins when he is born into a peasant family and sold into slavery, where it is his good fortune to be trained as a master of acupuncture. Years later, while tending to a sailor in colonial Hong Kong, he is shanghaied and forced into service at sea. During the voyage with Eliza, Tao nurses her through a miscarriage. When they disembark, Eliza is disguised as a boy, and she spends the next four years in male attire so she may travel freely and safely. Eliza's search for Joaquin (rumored to have become an outlaw) is disappointing, but through an eye-opening stint as a pianist in a traveling brothel and through her charged friendship with Tao, now a sought-after healer and champion of enslaved Chinese prostitutes, Eliza finds freedom, fulfillment and maturity. Effortlessly weaving in historical background, Allende (House of the Spirits; Paula) evokes in pungent prose the great melting pot of early California and the colorful societies of Valparaiso and Canton. A gallery of secondary characters, developed early on, prove pivotal to the plot. In a book of this scope, the narrative is inevitably top-heavy in spots, and the plot wears thin toward the end, but this is storytelling at its most seductive, a brash historical adventure.

In Defense of Food - Michael Pollan
Food is the one thing that Americans hate to love and, as it turns out, love to hate. What we want to eat has been ousted by the notion of what we should eat, and it's at this nexus of hunger and hang-up that Michael Pollan poses his most salient question: where is the food in our food? What follows in In Defense of Food is a series of wonderfully clear and thoughtful answers that help us omnivores navigate the nutritional minefield that's come to typify our food culture. Many processed foods vie for a spot in our grocery baskets, claiming to lower cholesterol, weight, glucose levels, you name it. Yet Pollan shows that these convenient "healthy" alternatives to whole foods are appallingly inconvenient: our health has a nation has only deteriorated since we started exiling carbs, fats--even fruits--from our daily meals. His razor-sharp analysis of the American diet (as well as its architects and its detractors) offers an inspiring glimpse of what it would be like if we could (a la Humpty Dumpty) put our food back together again and reconsider what it means to eat well. In a season filled with rallying cries to lose weight and be healthy, Pollan's call to action—"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."--is a program I actually want to follow.

The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michael Pollan

Pollan examines what he calls "our national eating disorder" (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It's a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You'll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: "The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world." All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. "[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of... well, precisely what I don't know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven't yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly."Pollan's narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald's lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns into the burgers, becomes the oil that cooks the fries and the syrup that sweetens the shakes and the sodas, and makes up 13 of the 38 ingredients (yikes) in the Chicken McNuggets.Indeed, one of the many eye-openers in the book is the prevalence of corn in the American diet; of the 45,000 items in a supermarket, more than a quarter contain corn. Pollan meditates on the freakishly protean nature of the corn plant and looks at how the food industry has exploited it, to the detriment of everyone from farmers to fat-and-getting-fatter Americans. Besides Stephen King, few other writers have made a corn field seem so sinister.Later, Pollan prepares a dinner with items from Whole Foods, investigating the flaws in the world of "big organic"; cooks a meal with ingredients from a small, utopian Virginia farm; and assembles a feast from things he's foraged and hunted.This may sound earnest, but Pollan isn't preachy: he's too thoughtful a writer, and too dogged a researcher, to let ideology take over. He's also funny and adventurous. He bounces around on an old International Harvester tractor, gets down on his belly to examine a pasture from a cow's-eye view, shoots a wild pig and otherwise throws himself into the making of his meals. I'm not convinced I'd want to go hunting with Pollan, but I'm sure I'd enjoy having dinner with him. Just as long as we could eat at a table, not in a Toyota.

The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell

Looking for insight into why she prefers Little Bighorn and Gettysburg to Martha's Vineyard, Vowell (author of the witty Take the Cannoli) calls her friend Kate, who works as a counselor for survivors of torture, who says, "That's how we try to make sense of the worst horrors. We use humor to manage anxiety." If Kate's right, then Vowell is managing her anxiety very well. Her best short, personal essays (anywhere from about two to 12 pages) focus on her ambivalent relationship to American history and citizenship: no one in recent memory has been as insightful on the direct pleasures and perils of voting, the misuse of Rosa Parks as a metaphor, the appeal of Canadians (who "ha[ve] this weird knack for loving their country in public without resorting to swagger or hate") and the relative merits of presidential libraries. Further undone, perhaps, by her devotion to such topics, Vowell also offers an eloquent defense of being a nerd: "Going too far and caring too much about a subject is the best way to make friends that I know." To wit, her hilarious essay "The Nerd Voice," which chronicles her political e-mail group as "the all-time nerdiest thing I've ever been involved in, and I say that as a person who has been involved with public radio and marching band." Even in the essays on pop culture, like "The New German Cinema" and "Tom Cruise Makes Me Nervous," Vowell, like David Sedaris, goes too far, cares too much and remains a very anxious and extremely funny citizen and shady patriot.

Unexpected (another spoiler)

2008-12-10T12:36:00.000-08:00

Okay I finished last night. I was a little emotional.

And wondering... was Leisel then raised by the Hermann's? I was pleasantly surprised that Ilsa came for her after the bombing. Their relationship really intrigued me. I hoped that from that point on they could possibly help relieve some of the pain and sadness each had experienced.

I love the theme in the book about the power of words. The power they gave to Hitler. All that they did for Leisel. Bad and good things.

And lastly, this is a total tangent, but the last line "I am haunted by humans" just reminded me of the last line of A River Runs Through It (I am haunted by waters)- one of my favorite movies. I need to read that book.

I found this...

2008-12-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

Do Max and Liesel end up together?
(I think they did, because... "In her final visions, she saw her three children, her grandchildren, her husband, and the long list of lives that merged with hers. Among them, lit like lanterns, were Hans and Rosa Hubermann, her brother, and the boy whose hair remained the color of lemons forever." If Max hadn't already been mentioned (her husband?), she would have mentioned him as one of the lives lit like lanterns.)

Not sure who to credit for this...found it on a random webpage...regardless, I think a good point is made.

Liesel + Max (spoiler)

2008-12-10T00:11:00.000-08:00

Question. Were they just friends? Or was there more? They obviously connected and understood and loved each other on another level, but do you think there was romantic love involved? I did. But maybe that is because I wanted it to be there? Do you think they ended up together? When we read at the end that Liesel went to live in Australia, I thought they probably didn't end up together, even though I wanted them to. Thoughts?

I really want to know the rest of their story!

I finished it.

2008-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

I know not everyone is finished, so I'll keep this brief - & vague.
.

I think it's really interesting that I didn't feel really sad when it was over. I mean, the topics were so sad, so part of me feels like I should have been really, really crying, that I should have been devastated. I was surprised that I wasn't. That I didn't cry. Nazi Germany. The Holocaust. Racism. Poverty. Friends & family lost. War. But yet somehow, via a narrator that is Death, such a beautiful story was created. I closed the book after finishing the final page & felt a twinge of disappointment, because I really didn't want it to be over. I didn't want to say goodbye. I don't know if it varies by edition, but the back of my book includes an interview with the author, & I found that his thoughts reflected mine. He said that when he was finished, he really missed the characters, like Lindsey said. I couldn't agree more. Somehow, he created these people that were completely endearing, no matter their abrasiveness or other unbecoming character traits. I felt a true affection for them, & I'm sad that I don't get to continue down a story with them.

Zusak also said that because of this connection with his characters, some parts of the book were absolutely devastating for him to write. He said that he was a "total wreck" working through parts of the book where the subject matter was more difficult. I love that he had such a strong affection for his characters.

I really, really loved this book. I think that I count it as one of my favorites.

The fists of an entire nation

2008-12-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

I am making progress- hit page 320 last night. Sorry I am so behind. I feel like I will finish quickly though now that I am pretty far into it.

Even though it is not "another book about the holocaust", I can't help but think about that whole horror. Each night after I put the book down I think how I would react if I lived in that time. In that country. If I were Max. Or Liesel. What would I do to find hope or happiness? It truly is such a terrible period in history. I cannot fathom it.

"In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring and beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them..." (p 255)

I do love the way Zusak writes.

And great characters worth getting to know. Each full of their own kind of goodness.

A new favorite

2008-12-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Like Jen, I finished the book.

I finished it on Sunday and I was sad. I shed a few tears. And not just because some sad things happened (I won't give anything away), but because I when I closed the book, I missed the characters. If I were an author, I'd want people to say that about my books.

Somewhere midway through the book, I liked the following regarding Max:

"Everything was so desperately noisy in the dark when he was alone. Each time he moved, there was the sound of a crease. He felt like a man in a paper suit." (p152)

I really just love the way Zusak describes feelings, emotions, events,... nearly everything, I guess.

And I once had a jacket (I think it's still somewhere in my closest) and every time I wore it, I honestly felt like I was wearing a paper suit. It just reminded me of this. That's all.

Wait...I finished it...

2008-12-02T08:16:00.001-08:00

So, I couldn't put it down after I posted last night. The last 100 pages were so, so good. I went to bed thinking how lucky I am to live such an "easy" life compared to Nazi Germany. Or any war torn country, or poverty stricken area...you get the point.

We are lucky.

I can't even imagine (just like 9/11) what it must have felt like to look up in the sky and see bombs dropping from tiny planes. Directly on your neighborhood. Entire towns and innocent families obliterated in seconds.

And then there were the concentration camps...

War is so, so lame.

Hurry up and finish it so we can talk about the ending!

good book...

2008-12-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

This is a great book. The subject is sad and miserable, yes, but the story is told in such a clever way that it doesn't feel like "another book about the Holocaust."

I love Liesel. And I love Hans Hubermann. Actually, I love all of the characters. I love that Liesel steals books and keeps them as her prize possessions--words are all she'll have in the end.

I'm almost done with the book and so I don't want to say too much, but I really hope Max makes it. It's been fun to read page after page and "watch" as Liesel and Max's relationship has transpired. I'm not sure what is going to happen to Rudy, but we are told early on that he dies. Her relationship with him is fun and a good reminder that even during the chaos and misery of war time, kids will still be kids. I love when she says, "The only thing worse than a boy who hates you is a boy who loves you."

I'm also touched by Rosa Hubermann's softening heart. I was worried about her in the beginning, but it's clear that she loves Liesel and Hans--enough to risk her own life by keeping Max in the basement.

I hope everyone else is enjoying the book as much as I am.

A few thoughts.

2008-11-20T08:17:00.001-08:00

So. The Book Thief. I'm 150 pages in and am having a hard time putting it down. Here are some of my favorite lines so far:

“When she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started not just to mean something, but everything." p 30

“No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment." p 32

My heart aches when I think about her poor mother, wanting Liesel to know that she was leaving her with a foster family because of love, but yet knowing that her daughter wouldn't yet understand the reasons for abandonment.

"Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out." - On the contradictory politics of Alex Steiner, p 61

I love this line. I imagine that many people in Germany felt this way and joined the Nazi Party to protect their family, not because they held contempt for Jewish people. It's slightly comforting that like Rudy's dad, hatred was not the motive for compliance, rather fear was.

Anyway...enjoying the book, but remembering that I am very uncomfortable with this time in history (and all genocide, of course).Yes, it's everything that genocide entails: death, suffering, hatred, violence...and also the idea that we, as a human race, are capable of such destruction/evil. It's scary.

November Book

2008-10-31T09:44:00.000-07:00

The Book Thief

There are 560 pages.

Any advice on how best to read it together?

Books

2008-10-30T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here's the deal. I compiled our book lists together. The *'s indicate how many people listed it as a book to read. By all means, comment about the books that look most interesting to you. Let's pick a book by tomorrow and then get reading... Oh, and if you've read a book and don't want to re-read it, put that in the comments too.

Fiction

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak***

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares

East of Eden by John Steinbeck**

Middlemarch by George Eliot

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
A Prayer for Owen Mean y by John Irving
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
The Guernsey Literary and Pototo Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer
The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga
The Brothers K by David James Duncan
Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Szafran Foer**
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Pope Joan by Donna Cross
Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah
The Sun Also Rises: Hemingway**
Song of Solomon: Toni Morrison
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter: Carson McCullers
Precious Bane: Mary Webb
My Name is Asher Lev: Chaim Potok
Running in the Family: Michael Ondaatje
All the King’s Men: Warren
All Over But the Shoutin’: Rick Bragg
I Capture the Castle: Dodie Smith
Persuasion: Jane Austen
Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy
These Is My Words: Nancy Turner
On Beauty: Zadie Smith**
Three Junes: Julia Glass
My Grandfather’s Son: Clarence Thomas
The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - J.S. Foer
Kafka on the Shore - Murakami
Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
The Wordy Shipmates - Sarah Vowell
The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau

Non-Fiction
Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman
Through the Children's Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan**
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan**
The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton**
Watching the English by Kate Fox**
Flapper: A Madcap of Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women who made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz
The People’s History of the United States: Howard Zinn
Dreams from my Father: Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream - Barack Obama

Abe Lincoln

2008-10-29T13:34:00.000-07:00

“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.”

^{- Abraham Lincoln}