Something About Me Challenge Wrap-Up

Challenge summary: Lisa from Breaking the Fourth Wall hosted this fab challenge, complete with its own blog. Participants chose 5 books that they felt said something about them and then everyone chose from those lists.

My books: Here are the ones I'd planned to read. I can't believe I picked 25, but every time a new list came up, I'd find another one I couldn't resist.

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby (Athena)
So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson (Vasilly, A Book in the Life, Sally)
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (Kristin)
Oh My Goth by Gena Showalter (Stephanie)
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (Wendy)
The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler (Nattie)
Sixpence House: lost in a town of books by Paul Collins (Nattie)
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth (Raidergirl13)
Evening Class by Maeve Binchy (Raidergirl13)
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (Christina)
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (various lists)
The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory (Margo)
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (Soleil)
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan (Booklogged)
Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand (LibraryLady)
An Inconvenient Wife by Megan Chance (LibraryLady)
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (SheReads)
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (SheReads)
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (Valentina)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (Juli)
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (Faith)
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (Kelly)
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (Historia)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Vasilly)
Marley and Me by John Grogan (Lynne)

The best book?: I can't pick just one! I can barely narrow it down to half a dozen, but here they are:
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Thirteenth Tale
The Polysyllabic Spree
An Inconvenient Wife
Evening Class
84 Charing Cross Road

Books I could have done without:

The Neverending Story, The Little Prince, and Inkheart - It's not exactly true that I could've done without them, because I did want to add add them to my children's librarian repertoire and I'm glad I did. But for me, they were pretty mostly chore-like and a struggle to get through.

Sixpence House - While I liked bits of the author's wit, I really didn't see the point of this book.

Books not finished:

Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading - From the introduction and table of contents, I could just tell her reading tastes were way too estoeric for me. She had a section titled something like What I learned from Catholic nun stories. As I wasn't even aware that was a genre, I figured we should part ways.

Marley and Me - Several things kept me from finishing this one - I'm not a large-dog person, I'd been reading a lot of non-fiction and needed a break, and I figured it would have to end with Marley dying, and I just didn't want to get invested only to have a sad ending.

The Historian - I just couldn't get into it, it seemed so very large and dark. And while I enjoy vampire stories, I'm not actually very interested in Dracula.

(Technically I didn't finish East of Eden for the challenge, unless I finish the last half by tomorrow night, but I am reading and enjoying it.)

What I learned from this challenge:

1) That there's a wonderful community of book bloggers out there! I guess I already knew that books can be a great common denominator for people, but it was cool to see it play out in cyberspace among (mostly) virtual strangers who all came together because of our love of reading. And I learned that that community is a wonderful source of recommendations - I liked most of the books and I loved a lot of them.

2) That I seem to need the "excuse" of a challenge to read things that have been on my TBR list for ages. East of Eden is one of my husband's all-time favourites and I've been meaning to read it since we met, but I hadn't tackled it til now. Same with the 3 children's books mentioned above and also Rebecca. I've joined a ton of challenges for next year and organized my TBR list on LibraryThing, mostly as a way to whittle down the list.

3) As with past challenges, I expanded my reading horizons. In particular, I read more nonfiction in the last half of this year than I've probably read in the last five years, combined.

Review: An Inconvenient Wife

An Inconvenient Wife by Megan Chance
4 stars

Summary (from Booklist): Mrs. Lucy Carelton, who comes from one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in 1880s New York City, has been completely undone by her nerves. Her ambitious husband, a nouveau riche stockbroker, drags her from one doctor to another in search of a cure that will allow her to fulfill her many social obligations without giving in to hysteria. They think they have found the solution in charismatic neurologist Victor Seth, a champion of a relatively new procedure called hypnotism. Seth sets about freeing Lucy from the social constraints that have made her so unhappy, encouraging her to pursue her artistic talents and explore her sexuality. Seth convinces himself that his techniques, including his handy way with an electrotherapy wand, are all in the name of science, but even he is unprepared for the new Lucy who emerges - a passionate, calculating, amoral creature of large appetites.

First line: "An asylum!" William said. "Is there nothing else we can try? Nothing at all?"

What I liked best: I really enjoyed how this book kept changing - at first it seemed like it was going to be an exploration of women's submissive role in 19th century society, then it got into Seth and his ambitious quest for recognition by the medical community and it looked like he'd be a Svengali, then Lucy became her own person, so it looked like it would be about her new life, and then there was a major plot twist!

More thoughts: At first I was concerned that it was just going to be about Lucy and her hysteria, a fairly simple historical fiction, and I wasn't sure if I'd like it. But, as you can see above, it kept me very interested. It was well-researched, with lots of interesting details about New York society and early medicine (apparently what I'd heard about vibrators being used to treat hysteria is indeed true!). Often the way Lucy's husband and father, and even Seth, treated her made me very angry, so I was glad when she emerged from their suppression as her own woman. The discussion of the power of the unconscious mind was also interesting, especially since it's something that's still being explored today.

Review: The Neverending Story

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Summary: "Bastian embarks on a wild adventure when he enters the magical world of Fantastica, a doomed land filled with dragons, giants, and monsters, and risks his life to save Fantastica by going on a very dangerous quest."

My thoughts: Oh gosh, this is one I should be careful with, because I know it's a beloved classic. But honestly, the title really summed it up for me - quite often I felt like it was literally never going to end and I really wanted it to. I'm just not a fantasy girl, that was the main problem. I did enjoy some of the descriptions of the places in Fantastica - the many-coloured desert and the silver city, for example. And, rather like Inhkheart, I liked the idea of it - who hasn't wanted to be transported into a favourite book, especially when life isn't treating you very well? But it just kept going on and on with another place and weird character and another and another. Telling the whole story up until Bastian entered it and then starting over again was bizarre to me - I'm sure there was lots of deep meaning I didn't get, but the "Fantastica has always existed/nothing existed until you wished it" thing didn't really make sense to me. And I found Bastian very irritating, although I was happy that he got a good ending (and not just because it was the end :-) ).

It's funny, because I adore The Phantom Tollbooth, which I've just realized is quite similar - rather annoying boy enters a story and meets all kinds of weird characters and goes on a quest. I don't know, I guess it has a lot more humour (I found very little in this one) and it's shorter. Part of my problem with The Neverending Story could also be because it's translated - I seem to sometimes have trouble with translated works (I didn't really like The Little Prince, either, as you may recall).

Oh well, I'm still glad I read it, I've been meaning to for years, to add to my children's librarian repertoire.

Review: Sixpence House

Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins

Summary: An account of Collins' attempt at moving his family to Hay-on-Wye a small Welsh town with 40 antiquarian bookstores (and not much else).

My thoughts: While the town of Hay sounds like a book-lover's dream vacation destination and Collins has a pretty good sense of humour, the point of this book was rather lost on me. Collins and his wife decide they can't afford to live in San Francisco any more and are craving a rural setting so they move not to a small town in the US, but across the Atlantic to Wales (with their baby son and hundreds upon hundreds of their own books). They'd visited Hay on vacation and liked it, so they try their hand at living there. But the town is a bit too weird and they can't find an affordable, non-deathtrap house, so they come back (apparently to live in a small town in Oregon or Vermont, which would have made sense in the first place). They don't even live in the titular Sixpence House, they just try to buy it before realizing it's a deathtrap. Collins peppers the book with passages from obscure books that he finds in Hay and there are some interesting characters in the townsfolk (particularly Richard Booth, the "King of Hay," who turned it into a bibliophile's mecca), but overall, I didn't find it particularly gripping. I'd certainly like to visit Hay some day, though!

Review: Rebecca

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Summary (from Barnes and Noble): "Last Night I DreamtI Went To Manderley Again."
So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past ther beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant -- the sinister Mrs. Danvers -- still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.

My thoughts: I've always meant to read this one, so I'm glad the Something About Me Challenge gave me the chance. I recall seeing a PBS miniseries about it when I was a kid, but don't recall much beyond Mrs. Danvers being really creepy. While I didn't race through it, I enjoyed it and the plot twist came as a surprise and then I found it really picked up. I enjoyed all the descriptions of Manderley and wanted to live there.

I spent a lot of time being annoyed with both Maxim and the narrator, too - he had no business marrying such a young, unsophisticated girl and dumping her at Manderley with all its baggage. He does nothing to help her settle in, just leaves her at the mercy of Mrs. Danvers and expects her to know how to run a huge house. And it really did seem as if any young girl he'd picked up in Monte Carlo would've done as the second Mrs. De Winter - for all the protestations of love in the novel, I didn't buy it. She loved him in a puppy-dog way, he loved her because he needed a new wife. After the circumstances of Rebecca's death came to light, they did seem to develop an actual relationship, but it was still sketchy to me. Still, it's an excellent example of gothic suspense and I'm glad I finally read it.

Review: Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Summary: A collection of humourous essays "which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path, and his move with his lover to France."

My thoughts: Wow, the Sedaris family is sure...interesting! I read his sister Amy's I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence earlier this year and it was one of the most bizarre books I've ever read (funny, but gosh-darn weird). And apparently it runs in the family! I enjoyed the first essay on being forced into speech therapy in elementary school for his lisp (where, he says, there should have been a Future Homosexuals of America sign on the door of the speech lab, since none of the popular jock boys had lisps). Sedaris Sr. sounds like quite the dad, from his desperate desire for his children to form a band, despite their lack of musical talent and interest all the way to the final chapter, which discusses his hoarding of rotten food. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about trying to explain Easter in French to a Moroccan woman, as well as the other French class ones. I don't think Sedaris will top my favourite humourist ever, Dave Barry (and, recently in second place, Billy Bryson), but I enjoyed the essays and laughed out loud a few times. I have a feeling he'd be even better in audiobook format, but my library is very scant on them, unfortunately.

Review: Life As We Knew It

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
4.5 stars

Summary: Sixteen year-old Miranda's normal life of swim team, friends, a crush, and life with her divorced parents and two brothers comes to a halt when a meteor crashes into the moon, throwing the earth's forces of nature off course and causing earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. Her diary details her family's struggle to survive.

My thoughts: This one has been getting a fair bit of good press and one of my colleagues is simply crazy about it, so I thought I'd give it a go. Survival stories aren't usually my bag, but this one was really well done. I thought it was a pitch-perfect account of what life would be like - the dwindling food, fear, cabin fever, finding joy in small things, alternating between optimism and despair and between loving and hating the people you were trapped with. School Library Journal rightly describes it as "frighteningly plausible." It also blew my mind that a change in gravity would cause all of those disasters - what do we take for granted more than gravity?

The only off-note for me was a few references to an "idiot President" on his ranch in Texas who, it seemed to me, was obviously meant to be George Bush. I didn't think they were needed and they actually took me out of the book by being references to the present rather than this disaster in the (near) future. I think they might date the book a little in a few years (although there will always be people who think any president is an idiot, I suppose).

Review: The Other Boleyn Girl

The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
5 stars

Summary (from Library Journal): Before Henry VIII ever considered making Anne Boleyn his wife, her... sister, Mary, was his mistress... The sisters and their brother George were raised with one goal: to advance the Howard family's interests, especially against the Seymours. So when Mary catches the king's fancy, her family orders her to abandon the husband they had chosen. She bears Henry two children, including a son, but Anne's desire to be queen drives her with ruthless intensity, alienating family and foes. As Henry grows more desperate for a legitimate son and Anne strives to replace Katherine as queen, the social fabric weakens. Mary abandons court life to live with a new husband and her children in the countryside, but love and duty bring her back to Anne time and again.

My thoughts: Right after I finished it, I had this very un-courtly, modern reaction to this 16th century-set blockbuster: "Man, that was a crazy-good book!!" :-) It kept me on the exercise bike twice as long as usual so I wouldn't have to stop reading and also up into the wee hours last night.

So, I loved it. I'd enjoyed Gregory's The Queen's Fool earlier this year, enough to give the author another go and boy, am I glad I did! It had all the scandals and sex of a soap opera but was well-written and very well-researched. I've always been quite interested in Elizabeth I and this was a fascinating look at her mother and her mother's family. I hadn't realized how long it took Anne Boleyn to actually get Henry VIII to marry her - I thought he divorced Katherine of Aragon very quickly, but Anne actually had to keep him interested without bedding him for 6 years, quite an amazing feat considering he was so selfish and fickle. And I had no idea that her younger sister had had him first! It was quite a portrait of a complex sisterly relationship - the Boleyn girls seem to have a had love/hate relationship where they alternately hated and really needed it each. I found it interesting but sad that they kept alternating between being "the other Boleyn girl" and that their family really didn't much care which of them was doing what, as long as the family was advancing. So it was also a very interesting look into court life and how high-born women were nothing but pawns in men's plans, even after if they were Queen of England. After reading this, I can see even more clearly how incredibly smart Elizabeth I was to avoid marriage and remain queen in her own right.

The Tudors sure are hot these days and I'm on the bandwagon! I'd better get to the Elizabeth sequel and I'm looking forward to the movie based on this book. And I've only seen one episode of The Tudors so far, for shame, especially since it seems to be set at exactly the same time as this book, when the Boleyn girls first came to court. And I might just finally check out a biography of Elizabeth I, which I've been meaning to do for some time. And, ooh, I almost forgot, there's her newest book, The Boleyn Inheritance! I see a Tudor binge coming on...

Review: A Walk in the Woods

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Summary: A humorous and well-researched account of Bryson's attempt (with and without his friend Katz) to hike the Appalachian Trail.

My thoughts: I've always wanted to read Bill Bryson, having heard that he was very funny. But I'm not much of a non-fiction girl, so I never got around to him. But now I think I can safely say that I think Bill Bryson is an amazing author because he got me to read about (and be interested in) something that is in fact my definition of HELL.

Yes, hell. I hate camping (a fully-equipped luxury campground in an RV is about as much as I can take and even then it's way down my list) and I don't understand the appeal of hiking, particularly not for days on end in the mountains. I found myself wondering many times why he was doing it when he was so clearly miserable so much of the time and really, by his own admission, not cut out for it. I can't imagine hiking in mud, snow, sweltering heat and being miles from civilization with only open-fronted shelters to sleep in and a privy if you're lucky. Hell, I'm telling you.

I enjoyed his anecdotes about the people they met on the trail (both amazingly nice and amazingly annoying) and about the often ridiculous Katz who kept throwing equipment away because it was too heavy. Even many of the tales of the perils of the trail were amusing, particularly the many, many about bears (a running theme). I did start to glaze over during the longer passages about particular flora and fauna, but even so, I was impressed with his research about all areas of the trail. The constant reminders about how much of that flora and fauna were nearing extinction and the uselessness of the National Parks Service got a bit wearisome, but I'm sure having experienced it up close, it's very upsetting to see such an often-cavalier attitude towards nature.

I'll definitely read more Bryson and will hopefully get to Notes From a Small Island soon.

Review: The Polysyllabic Spree

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
5 stars

Summary: A collection of columns Hornby wrote for The Believer about the books he read (or didn't read) each month.

My thoughts: I want to have Nick Hornby over for dinner! I loved this book!

I had the same kind of kindred spirit reaction that I did to 84 Charing Cross Road. I'd assumed I'd like it, as I've liked his books, and I was right. This is what I'd hoped So Many Books, So Little Time would be like. It seemed to be more about the books, somehow, even when he was talking about what had happened in his life, SMBSLT seemed like the other way around. He discussed the books he'd bought, the ones he'd read (often not the same ones at all) and how some books led to others - an author's work might lead to a biography of that author, or vice versa. But he did it a a funny (so funny!), approachable way. One month he read just David Copperfield and found it hard to get back into lesser novels. Even though I think I'd only read one of the books he did, I still enjoyed each column and how life either got in the way or enhanced his reading - becoming a father for the third time and football season meant he read less those months, for example. I was impressed that he'll read just about anything, from biographies of sports heroes to the letters of Anton Chekhov, with lots of novels in between. I was very curious to find out his opinion of one of the books he bought, Winner of the National Book Award by Jincy Willet. Maybe it'll be in the sequel, Housekeeping vs. the Dirt. (I didn't like it at all and my book club wasn't too impressed, either. We really didn't get why it was described in the blurb as "witty" when it wasn't, it was confusing and rather icky.)

One bit that struck me was that he, like me sometimes, is able to be put off a book by a little thing. In Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal (the only book I think he and I have both read) he notes that no-one has ever said "Arsenal won Liverpool 3-0." after a football match, as her young character does. ("Trashed" or "thumped" are examples of what people do say.) And then his "dismay and disbelief led me to question other things, and the fabric of the novel started to unravel a little." I thought it was an interesting and true point, that such a small thing really can distract you from the rest of the book.

My favourite sentence was: "...after a lifetime of reading, I can officially confirm that readers' writers beat writers' writers every time." Right on, brother!

Review: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
4 stars

Summary/review (from School Library Journal): Lily at 80 reflects on her life, beginning with her daughter days in 19th-century rural China. Foot-binding was practiced by all but the poorest families, and the graphic descriptions of it are not for the fainthearted. Yet women had nu shu, their own secret language. At the instigation of a matchmaker, Lily and Snow Flower, a girl from a larger town and supposedly from a well-connected, wealthy family, become laotong, bound together for life. Even after Lily learns that Snow Flower is not from a better family, even when Lily marries above her and Snow Flower beneath her, they remain close, exchanging nu shu written on a fan... As the years pass, the women's relationship changes; Lily grows more powerful in her community, bitter, and harder, until at last she breaks her bond with Snow Flower. They are not reunited until Lily tries to make the dying Snow Flower's last days comfortable. Their friendship, and this tale, illustrates the most profound of human emotions: love and hate, self-absorption and devotion, pride and humility, to name just a few. Even though the women's culture and upbringing may be vastly different from readers' own, the life lessons are much the same, and they will be remembered long after the details of this fascinating story are forgotten.

Reason for reading: The Something About Me Challenge and also I'd heard so much about it. Actually, someone even recommended it to me as a children's book! No, no... (But I know some of the teens at my library have enjoyed it.)

My thoughts: I agree with the statements above. Despite the far-off setting, I found the book enjoyable and it really does cover all of those emotions, particularly love (and the longing to be loved) and self-absorption. That the breaking of Lily and Snow Flower's decades-long bond is caused by a single misunderstanding, is quite tragic, but I'm sure it still happens today.

I thought it was very well-researched. I learned a lot about 19th century China, particularly about foot-binding. I had no idea they actually broke and permanently deformed the foot - I thought they just bound it so it stayed child-small. Eeeyugh!!! I had had no idea Chinese women had had a secret language, although I do think it's rather funny they thought it was a "secret" from the men when they sang and chanted in it at every special event and even wove it into clothing and shoes. As Lily finally realized, the men knew about it, they just didn't think women had anything important to say. I was also really intrigued by the formation of the laotong friendships that were almost like marriages and in many cases there was much more affection and devotion involved.

(As an aside, not long before reading this book, I'd read Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the foot-binding brought to mind the female circumcision in that book. It really made me pause in horror at the things that have been done (and are still being done) to women in the name of things like beauty and "purity.")

Review: Inkheart

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Summary: One night when she is very small, Meggie's father Mo reads aloud from a book called Inkheart and their lives are never the same. Years later, Meggie and Mo find themselves in the middle of an adventure straight out of a storybook - literally. Villains escaped that night and Meggie's mother disappeared. Now only Meggie can change the course of the story and bring about a happy ending.

My thoughts: I really, really liked the premise of this book - reading characters out of a story. Who hasn't wanted to see their favourites in the flesh? I liked Meggie and the other characters, I wanted to know what would happen, I enjoyed the quotes at the start of each chapter and liked that Meggie enjoyed classic books. The only thing was that at 560 pages, it seemed realllly long to me for a kids' book (yeah, I know, enormous Harry Potters, etc...). I found myself wishing it would end and feeling that it could've been condensed. There seemed to be a lot of to-ing and fro-ing that I could've done without. But it was a big hit with young readers, so I have to say that the kids are better readers than I am to not feel tired partway through. Still, it's a very imaginative and intelligent book - perhaps my brain just wasn't up for it this month.

(There were quite a few quotes from non-children's book The Princess Bride and a few times I found myself wishing I was reading it instead. Apparently I need to dig my copy out of storage and immerse myself in Westley and Buttercup.)

Review: So Many Books, So Little Time

So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson

This is a hot topic in the book blogosphere right now, thanks to the Something About Me Challenge and the Bibliography Challenge. If you want to hear any more about it from little ol' me, read on...

First off, I have to say that I reacted to Nelson like a character in a book, rather than the author. So I'm just going with that - I do know she's a real person who has the right to read and write and think whatever she likes.

- Overall, I liked the book well enough - I got through it quickly and was kept pretty interested. It was interesting to see how the books were affecting her, what thoughts they brought to her mind or how they related to what was happening in her life. But it didn't really seem like a chronicle of a "year of passionate reading." Several of our Something About Me-ers mentioned the passion in the "passionate reading" didn't come through and I agree. Becky summed it up really well: "...if it had been called "Thoughts on the Books I've Read This Year" instead I would have thought it delivered just fine."

- I also agree with About Me-er Alisonwonderland who says she didn't feel very engaged with Nelson - "a couple of times i found myself thinking that many of the book bloggers i know could have written this book at least as well, if not better." (Note - I do not include myself in that category!)

- Quite a few times Nelson reminded me of that Booking Through Thursday question about being a "Goldilocks reader" - she couldn't get into the book if things weren't just right. For someone who is a "passionate" reader, she seemed awfully picky. I didn't understand her Rule #1 that "location, location, location" applies to books as much as real estate. To me, if you really want to read a book, I don't think it matters which living room/state/weather zone you're sitting in. In one of her first entries, she ended up reading the only English book in the house - a biography of a Russian author whose family owned the place - during one vacation because she couldn't get into the one book she'd brought along because she felt it didn't match the Russia-like setting of the ski lodge. I found that really extreme and almost a kind of self-punishment for bringing the "wrong" book with her.

- Nelson claims (quite a few times) that she's not much of a re-reader: "And life is short, why waste time on something you already know, when you can discover something exciting and new?" This is how I feel; I have a few very beloved books and some that I've read a couple of times, but most of my books go right back to the library and that's the end of them, though I thank them for their company. But for someone who claims not to be much of a re-reader, she does it a lot in just one year of reading - I lost count, but I think there were at least 8 books that she'd read before. I think she needs to just admit she's a re-reader - it's not like there's anything wrong with it, it's good to have beloved books. And if you own as many books as she does in her cherry-shelved library, it seems odd you wouldn't re-read them. (But then, I'm not much for owning books, but I think I'm in the minority there.)

- She's a bit of a snob - in one of the appendices, she mentions trying out a Mary Higgins Clark mass market paperback and has to justify it by saying she was on a plane and didn't really remember much about it. I don't know anything about Mary Higgins Clark, but the disdain for mass market paperbacks and a hugely popular author irked me.

- She puts her planned reading list for the year in one of the appendices and no wonder she barely read any of them (2, I think)! They were almost all things she clearly didn't enjoy reading - poetry, short stories, and nonfiction (all of which she admits to not particularly enjoying) and a bunch of classics she hadn't gotten to yet. With a list like that, she was bound to "fail" (in the sense of not reading what she planned to read, I don't think she really did fail). I think we all have lists of "worthy" titles we'd like to get to, but to think you're going to do them all in a year seems like a lot of pressure.

- I was totally with her on this statement: "I have to read and read and read, all the while knowing that the more aggressively I pursue my passion, the sooner it will end and then I will be bereft." I've put off finishing books I'm loving so that I can keep that bereft feeling at bay a while longer.

- I do agree with her Rule #2 - timing. There are certainly books that you can't get into because you're too young, there's too much going on in your life and you're distracted, they're too close to something you can't face right now, or they're heavy and you need fluffy or they're fluffy and you want solid.

- I'm definitely a "double-booker, " too. I pretty much always have one book in my bag for the commute and errands and one by my bed, and fairly often another one somewhere in the house. She mentions being careful they're separate enough to not get them mixed up in your head. This happened to me earlier this year - I was reading 2 historical novels set in the Maritimes for 2 different book clubs. I picked up one and couldn't figure out where the narrator's many siblings and drunk father had got to and why they were dirt poor and lived in the city all of a sudden. (Not to mention that the narrator was now a boy instead of a girl!)

- I agreed with her about not really liking "publishing phenomena" - the books that are currently the talk of the town. It's nicer to either discover them first before you hear too much about them or to read them many years after the hype has died down.

- Not liking Mitch Albom and his touchy-feely pseudo-spiritual drivel (though I had to read The 5 People You Meet in Heaven for book club and she tried Tuesdays with Morrie after a friend suggested it.)

- I loved The Crimson Petal and the White and Slammerkin, too!

- One thing that I found quite funny - she really got into A Million Little Pieces and actually found it helpful to her marriage. I wonder how she felt when she discovered it was a sham? (Maybe the message still stayed the same, which was all that mattered.)

Review: Nantucket Nights

Nantucket Nights by Elin Hilderbrand
3 stars

Summary (from Booklist): Kayla, Antoinette, and Val are a trio whose unlikely friendship was formed 20 years ago when they each rented a room in the same house. Val and Kayla were fast friends, but, despite Kayla's persistence, Antoinette kept her distance--until one night when her desire for a midnight swim inaugurated an annual ritual and cemented their bond. On a remote point on the island of Nantucket, the three women spend one night each Labor Day weekend drinking champagne, eating lobster, skinny-dipping, and baring their souls. One of the secrets revealed during their twentieth get-together launches a chain of events that changes them all forever. Antoinette swims out to sea and never returns, and as they search for her, wondering if she is alive, a complex web of deceptions (both intentional and unintended) begins to unravel.

My thoughts: I chose this book because I'm quite fascinated by those New England islands. I went through quite an obsession with the Hamptons, but didn't know much about Nantucket (besides it being the home of the man in that limerick). The first page describes Kayla doing her Christmas shopping on Main Street I was instantly drawn in and wanted to visit Nantucket in the winter - charming little shops all handing out snacks, filled to the brim with Christmas cheer. I also enjoyed reading about the beaches and generally about island life.

The actual story is definitely soap opera-ish, but would make a good beach read (especially given the beachy setting). It dealt with women's friendships in a non-typical way - not a whole lot of loving support going on at all. Harsh, cynical Val tells Kayla that's because they couldn't handle being caring all year round - that's why they only share things with each other once a year. Val and Antoinette were supremely unlikeable and Kayla seemed quite naive at times (though I think she can be forgiven having faith in her friends, she didn't realize they were complete bitches). But even Kayla is far from blameless and she comes very close to ruining her marriage. The twists and turns kept me reading and most of the time I liked Kayla, but the lack of any human feeling in the other two was pretty off-putting.

Review: 84 Charing Cross Road

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
5 stars

Summary: This slim volume reproduces the 20-year correspondence between Hanff (a script-reader and later scriptwriter/author) in New York and Frank Doel of Marks & Co. Booksellers at 84 Charing Cross Road, London.

My thoughts: What an utterly charming little book! It made me curious to know more about Helene Hanff and I must get my hands on the semi-sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, where she finally makes it over to England. I was very sad that she didn't make it there while Frank Doel was still alive and the shop was still open. That's how you know it's nonfiction - no fiction author would have let that happen! :-)

I could really relate to Hanff wanting to see the England that she'd read about - I've been to London twice and I still want to go back! I love reading British novels and coming across so many famous places in their pages. I also feel the same way about New York City.

Hanff had a great sense of humour. I particularly enjoyed the letters where she was raging at Doel over some book or other that she considered sub-par (the one that sticks out in my mind is a rant against an abridged version of Samuel Pepys' diary). Despite her bluster, she was so kind to the people at the shop, sending them care packages during post-war rationing.

The book belongs to another time that seems much kinder and gentler (whether it really was or not, we could still use a dose of it) - actual written letters, amazing customer service, a 20-year friendship. It's also a time capsule of England during and after WWII, all the way up to the 60's (Frank remarks that he quite likes the Beatles, if only the fans wouldn't scream so much).

I think I might even read it again, it was such a quick one and such fun. And I've requested that my library buy the movie with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.

Review: The Thirteenth Tale

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
5 stars

Summary: Oh, I don't want to give anything away! Briefly, it is the story of Vida Winter, England's most prolific and popular novelist. It is also the story of Margaret Lea, a solitary woman employed in her father's antiquarian bookshop and an amateur biography. Miss Winter has told fans and reporters alike different versions of her life for years (she is, after all, a master storyteller) but now that her life is coming to an end, she wants Margaret to tell the whole truth for her, at last. Margaret is skeptical of Vida's ability to tell the truth, so she does some research on her own. Between Miss Winter's recollections and Margaret's research, a thrilling, incredible and tragic story of sisters is revealed. And along the way, the story of Margaret's past is revealed, too.

Favourite quote: This book is chock-full of great writing, but I particularly enjoyed this one about the joys and perils of reading:

"I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out. I can still feel the scar under my fringe now.
Reading can be dangerous."

My thoughts: This was an amazingly entertaining book - suspenseful, shocking, with wonderful language. I was hooked from the very beginning, with Setterfield's description of the way light came through a window onto the doorstep. I sometimes found Margaret just a bit tiresome - I wanted to get on with Vida's story instead of Margaret's agonizing over her past and relationship with her mother. Jane Eyre, one of my favourites, plays a big part in the novel, although I confess I didn't always make all of the connections. At one point Margaret had figured out all of the clues and I still hadn't, this one kept me guessing til the end!

Review: The Amateur Marriage

The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler
4 stars

Summary (adapted from Publishers Weekly): In December 1941 in St. Cassians, a mainly Eastern European conclave in Baltimore, 20-year-old Michael Anton meets Pauline and is immediately smitten. They marry after Michael is discharged from the army, but their temperaments don't mix. For Michael, self-control is the greatest of virtues; for Pauline, expression is what makes us human (whether that expression is a good idea or not). At Pauline's urging, the two move to the suburbs, where they raise three children, George, Karen and Lindy. Too much more would be giving away the plot, but it won't come as a surprise to hear that they eventually divorce, after 30 years of mostly downs with very few ups. The rest of the novel follows their separate, yet still connected, lives.

My thoughts: I'm finding that I really enjoy Anne Tyler. My book club read Digging to America earlier this year and I really liked it, particularly the parts about the little girls (it was worth it for the "binky party" - where her mother tried to get rid of her daughter's soother addiction - alone). I'd also read The Accidental Tourist back in library school for a project on popular fiction, but had put her from my mind after that. I'm glad I've found her again!

The jacket copy says "Anne Tyler captures the evocative nuances of everyday life during these decades with such telling precision..." and this is true - Tyler is excellent at capturing the sounds, smells, sights - the whole atmosphere - of a situation. I was particularly struck by the going-away-to-war party scene in the community hall - you can smell the pergoies, see the whole neighbourhood gathered together, from babies to seniors, and hear the women gossiping while they "finickily [readjust] the sprigs of parsley garnish after one or another of the men had passed through loading his plate."

Publishers Weekly pointed out that "A lesser novelist would take moral sides, using this story to make a didactic point" and this is really true - I kept wanting to root for either Michael or Pauline, but Tyler wouldn't let me. Even the characters themselves sometimes acknowledg (in non-heated moments) their joint responsibility for their problems. I think this was very well done, as many "women's novels" have the wife as a long-suffering victim and the husband as a cad, period. Here they were both long-suffering but neither was a terrible person (though they could be very unkind) - they just didn't fit together.

The title is really interesting, too. It made me wonder if I have an amateur marriage and if everyone thinks they do, at some point. I don't think mine is amateur, but after only 4 years, it's still evolving. It made me think about marriage as a process - even after 30 years, this couple didn't have a "professional" one.

Review: Cheaper by the Dozen

Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

I appear to have merged the movies Cheaper by the Dozen (which I don't think I've seen) and Yours, Mine, and Ours in my brain - I thought the Gilbreths were the ones with 6 kids from each marriage. But nope, they had their very own dozen together.

Summary: Most people probably know the story - Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were motion study experts and they decided, early in their marriage, that they wanted a large family - an even dozen, if possible. The Gilbreths, especially Frank, used their family as a testing ground for their efficiency theories. This book covers the birth of all dozen, up until their father's death in 1924.

My thoughts: Huge families seem to be viewed as freak shows these days, things that get you your own show on TLC or Discovery Channel. And even at the turn of the last century, a dozen was a pretty big number. But the Gilbreths managed it, and without a lot of the modern conveniences we have today and seem to have managed quite happily.

I had a few mixed feelings about Mr. Gilbreth - he clearly loved his family and was very intelligent and fun-loving. But he also seemed to really enjoy embarrassing his wife and kids, a habit I always find really irritating. But his methods for making learning fun (teaching all the kids morse code by writing out clues with rewards, making room-sized diagrams of the solar system) were excellent and it's clear he placed a great value on education. The contributions he made to industry and the military are very impressive - he consulted for many large companies such as Remington typewriters and Lever Brothers.

The book is made up of great stories - everyone getting their tonsils out at once, summers spent at "The Shoe" their place in Nantucket (2 old lighthouses and a cottage), thinking any time mother was sick in bed it meant a baby was on the way. I think my favourite is the one about a woman from the national birth control society being sent as a joke by a neighbor (who had 8 kids of her own) to see Mrs. Gilbreth as a possible local chapter president.

It was an interesting read for an only child like me. I can barely imagine one sibling, let alone 11.

I thought it would be dated, taking place as it does in the early part of the 20th century, but it's really not, it feels very fresh. The only things that really date it are the actual current events of the day. And in fact, it gives a great example of the more things changing, the more they stay the same. Mr. Gilbreth rails against the older girls wanting to be popular at the start of the Jazz Age:

Popular. That's all I hear. That's the magic word, isn't it? That's what the matter with this generation. Nobody thinks about being smart, or clever, or sweet or even attractive. No, sir. They want to be skinny and flat-chested and popular. They'd sell their soul and body to be popular, and if you ask me a lot of them do.

Apart from the flat-chested part, isn't that pretty much what we hear about today's teenagers, who in polls often indicate they'd rather be famous rather than smart?

When I have a break in between challenges, I plan to read the sequel, Belles on their Toes, which is about how the family coped after Mr. Gilbreth's death. And I've got the 1950's version of the movie on my to-see list.

Review: Uglies

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
4 stars

Summary: Tally Youngblood can't wait to turn 16. That's when she'll stop being an "ugly" (basically a teen) and get turned into a "pretty" via the operation everyone gets at 16. Then she'll get to live in New Pretty Town (rather than Uglyville) where you don't have to do anything but party and be gorgeous. As the youngest in her dorm, Tally's all alone until she turns 16 at the end of the summer, until she meets Shay while out hover-boarding and playing pranks at night. Shay, shockingly, doesn't want to be pretty and she tells Tally about the Smoke, a settlement in the wilderness where conscientious objectors defect to escape the operation. When Shay runs away, she leaves cryptic directions to the Smoke, in case Tally wants to follow. Unfortunately, just before her operation, Tally is brought in by Special Circumstances (also known as "cruel pretties") because they think she knows where the Smoke is. When the evil Dr. Cable threatens Tally with being ugly forever, Tally sets off to the Smoke with a tracking device to activate when she arrives. At first Tally thinks she's saving Shay (and herself) from a terrible, ugly life but when she meets David, a young rebel leader who grew up in the Smoke and learns about the dark side of the pretty operation, she changes her mind. But will it be too late for the Smoke?

My thoughts: I'd been wanting to read this for ages! I'm so glad I did. I'm not usually a dystopian fan, but this was such a page-turner, I can't wait to read the sequels.

I did think that it had a pretty heavy-handed environmental message (clear-cutting, pollution, etc. have all been eradicated and the "Rusties" - basically us - are seen as idiots), which was a bit irritating in spots. And it had that thing about dystopian fiction that I find jarring - the ancestors of the people are always stupid - look at what they did to the planet, they were so racist, we're so clever, etc. Oh, yeah, those drugs in the water supply? That chip in your head? It's all for the Greater Good, it's why we're so happy. I guess that's the point, really, that no society is perfect. But I'd still rather have the problems of today that we're working on solving than a chip in my head. (Note: there's not a chip in the book, that's just an example. I don't want to spoil it.)

The notion of everyone being beautiful was quite something. At one point the girls are looking at a 300-year-old magazine photo of an anorexic model and they can't believe anyone ever had the not-eating disease or that people were discriminated against based on skin colour. When everyone's equally beautiful, those problems seem to vanish. (Although it would probably eventually turn into the hair-colour or eye-colour wars.) On the surface, it really seems quite logical. And as someone who could use liposuction, a height extension, and better hair, I found the idea a very tempting one at the beginning of the book. Til I found out the flip side of the operation, that is.

But as I finished the book this morning, I was thinking that all the Pretties basically become Paris Hilton - constant partying, drinking, having whatever you want on demand, adoration, only having to worry about what to wear and where the next party is. There's even a (male) character called Peris, although I think the book was written before the height of Paris-mania. And the sad thought occurs to me with Paris being such a huge idol, so many young women aspire to this exact lifestyle - no need to use one's brain or to work hard. With the increase of plastic surgery in young women, maybe a future pretty operation to celebrate "growing up" isn't so far in the scary future.

Review: Evening Class

Evening Class by Maeve Binchy
5 stars

Summary (from Amazon): Maeve Binchy can always be counted on to spin an involving tale about ordinary people that brings out the extraordinary in everyone. In Evening Class, Binchy zooms in on the working-class of Dublin. Schoolteacher Aidan Dunne organizes an evening class in Italian with the help of Nora O'Donoghue, an Irishwoman returning home after 26 years in Sicily. When the somewhat squashed-by-life denizens of the surrounding neighborhood take the unexpected step of enrolling in the class, they find their lives transformed. Binchy tells her story from the viewpoints of eight different characters and rewards both them and her readers with happy endings after the requisite rocky road.

My thoughts: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'll definitely be checking out more Maeve Binchy, whom I'd also thought I'd like to read. I like books where all of the characters are connected in the end and this had that in spades. I didn't realize it would focus on 8 characters, though, when I started, I thought it would be all about Signora, but then each section was named for a new person and people from previous sections started appearing and I was really interested to see how they would all come together. Each section could almost be a short story in itself and still be enjoyable, but it was much better to have them all connected. The device for the coming together was a trip to Rome for the class - it was so lovely that everyone enjoyed the class so much and made it a success when the school officials thought it would be a waste of time.

I'd love to have a Signora (what Nora was called in Italy) in my life - she had a wonderfully gentle way of making things right without people even really noticing that's what she was doing. It really is a "tale about ordinary people that brings out the extraordinary in everyone" - some of the characters are only mentioned in the background of the evening class at first and then when their chapter comes, you discover all kinds of secrets and sacrifices and loves and hates and hidden depths.

Of course, I knew everything would end happily (or unhappily for those that deserved it), but hooray for that, say I. I'm a big happy ending fan.

What I learned about Raidergirl: From her post about this one I learned that she visited Italy last year, and I'm envious! I already knew we had some similar reading tastes (I've picked 3 of her books!) and this proved it again. Thanks for sharing this lovely story!