Book a Week in 2014 - BW28

[Robin M]

Happy Sunday, dear hearts!  Today is the start of week 28 in our quest to read 52 Books. Welcome back to all our readers, to all those who are just joining in and to all who are following our progress. Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 Books blog to link to your reviews. The link is below in my signature.

 

52 Books Blog - Thomas More and Utopia:  We are moving on from the philosophical ideas of steampunk to the philosophical ideals of a perfect society, or maybe not so perfect.  

Today is the anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More. He was tried for treason when he refused to sign the Act of Succession and when he refused to accept King Henry III as the head of the Church of England. He was beheaded on July 6, 1535 and his final words were "The King's good servant, but God's first."  He was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint in 1935. 

More wrote many works including Utopia, and popularized and influenced the genre of the Utopian literature. Utopia is essentially an ideal society and Dystopia is a society in decline, characterized by dehumanization, strife, or totalitarian government to name a few.  The earliest novel about a utopian society was The Republic written by Plato in 350BC.   Dystopia, an offshoot of Utopian literature, was popularized in the early 1900's.

 

Since SWB includes Thomas More's Utopia in the list of great history/political reads in Well Educated Mind, now seems like a good time to read it. 

Currently in my stacks, along with Utopia, are James Hilton's Lost Horizon, Veronica Roth's Divergent,  Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.  

Check out this huge list from Utopian Literature and the ever popular goodreads for their list of Best Utopian and Dystopian fiction.

The theme of the month for July, if you haven't guessed by now, :001_smile:  is reading Utopian/Dystopian novels.

 

 

 

History of the Ancient World:  Chapters 28 and 29

 

 

What are you reading this week?

 

 

 

 

Link to week 27

[Robin M]

Started Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell on Friday and enjoying it so far.  If you haven't gotten it yet, the paperback version font is miniscule so if you have old eyes like me, recommend getting the ebook. 

 

Besides Utopia, also diving into The Book of Margery kempe, #2 in wem autobiographies. 

[Tress]

I'm back on schedule with reading SWB's History of the Ancient World :hurray: . I spent a lovely afternoon reading yesterday, while everybody was watching soccer :leaving: .

 

I don't know why I always let this slip to the bottom of my reading pile. I'm interested in history, I really like SWB's writing style.

I'm going to keep the schedule from now on!

[Just Robyn]

I finished And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which was really fun, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Then I read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. I hope to start in today on ^{The Body Artist} by Don Delillo, and I'll find my copy of Utopia and flip through it and see if I can get myself to read it.

[Jane in NC]

My quick weekend read was The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippmann.  I have been looking for a new detective series and I think that her Tess Monaghan books set in Baltimore may be just the ticket. 

 

The Girl in the Green Raincoat first appeared in serialized form in the NY Times.  The tale opens with our detective on bed rest from preeclampsia, staring out her window in Hitchcockian fashion.  Without much else to do, she attempts to connect the dots on events she is witnessing. 

 

I enjoyed the writing and found Lippman to be smart and entertaining. I look forward to reading more of her novels!

 

My next fiction choice is Helen Dunmore's novel The Siege--I just can't let go out WWII.  The novel, set in Leningrad in 1941, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and the Orange Prizes in 2002.

 

My non-fiction selection is Extra Virginity:  The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil which comes highly recommended by a friend.

 

Several chapters behind in HoAW.  :leaving:

[shukriyya]

Logging in 'on the road' so to speak. I finished 'The Firebrand' the other day. It was an interesting and, at times, absorbing read and generated some lively discussions here with my Greek myth-loving ds who hadn't considered too deeply the idea that the history we accept as 'fact' might in fact have more fluidity than that, that recorded history is often shaped by the pens of the victors. As well we talked about the idea that there is a whole other half (or more) of the population, namely female, whose experience and perspective on the events that unfolded is as valid and accurate albeit silent and quite different from the predominate experience. This all arose from the plot twist in which Kassandra is the one who killed Achilles instead of her twin, Paris. It was a long read but I appreciated the author's creativity and willingness to envision a different trajectory of historical events with its sympathy to the the female voice.

 

Today the kindle daily deals had some great offers and I ended up with several new books including, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, the classic The Moonflower Vine, Russian Winter which I know some here read and weren't keen on but it looked fun and at $1.99 hey, it's a deal, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeepers, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World which is one of the few non-fiction books I've bought in a while but looks fun and is about various wonderful walks in Paris, and Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, which is a bit like SWB's WEM from an expressly literary perspective with less breadth but more detail.

 

I started the second installment in the steampunk series, Magnificent Devices, but am only a page or two in. It's probably good travel reading, light and entertaining without requiring too much mental focus.

 

Hope everyone is having a good holiday weekend.

[Kareni]

For the past few days, I've been on a Kristen Ashley reading kick.  I've read

For You (The 'Burg Series Book 1) and At Peace (The 'Burg Series Book 2) and am partway through Golden Trail (The 'Burg Series Book 3) all of which are available for 99 cents to Kindle readers.  (The four books in this series are the only ones I've actually bought to read on the Kindle.  We won't talk about the 200 other books/novellas that I've downloaded for free.)

 

I'm also partway through yet another Kristen Ashley book, this one which was just released in paper:

Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain)

 

All of these are contemporary romances and all have something of a mystery element.  There is definite adult content.  I've enjoyed/am enjoying them all.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Negin]

My quick weekend read was The Girl in the Green Raincoat by Laura Lippmann.  I have been looking for a new detective series and I think that her Tess Monaghan books set in Baltimore may be just the ticket. 

 

The Girl in the Green Raincoat first appeared in serialized form in the NY Times.  The tale opens with our detective on bed rest from preeclampsia, staring out her window in Hitchcockian fashion.  Without much else to do, she attempts to connect the dots on events she is witnessing. 

 

My next fiction choice is Helen Dunmore's novel The Siege--I just can't let go out WWII.  The novel, set in Leningrad in 1941, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and the Orange Prizes in 2002.

 

Added all of these to my wish list :).

 

I read:

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Little Golden Book - 5 Stars - very, very short book, but so sweet. My daughter found this for me in a lovely bookstore in Victoria when we stopped there on our Alaska cruise - Stacia, the same bookstore you went to This is a lovely small coffee-table type book, full of nostalgic illustrations (from past books) and one-sentence words of advice.

 

Between Shades of Grey - 4 Stars - I think it's a YA book. My daughter recommended it to me. Amazing and I would have given it 5 Stars, but it ended rather abruptly.

 

  

 

 

MY RATING SYSTEM

5 Stars

Fantastic, couldn't put it down

4 Stars

Really Good

3 Stars

Enjoyable

2 Stars

Just Okay – nothing to write home about

1 Star

Rubbish – waste of my money and time. Few books make it to this level, since I usually give up on them if they’re that bad.

[Mom-ninja.]

On an unexpected whim I read The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I have not and will not read the Twilight series, but this book hooked me. It was a bit too long winded (did she get paid by the word like Dickens?) and very very predictable. However, it was enjoyable brain candy.

 

 

[mumto2]

I just lost my longer post so am now basically marking for tomorrow.

 

I am caught up on HotAW!  Yeah!!!!

 

I have started Jonathan Strange and think I like it.  Not very far and am having the same print issues as Robin with the paperback.  Switching to the kindle version because I was able to get the library copy on overdrive.

[Rosie_0801]

 also diving into The Book of Margery kempe, #2 in wem autobiographies. 

 

That poor woman needed drugs. Serious drugs. That has to be the worst case of post partum psychosis ever.  :crying:

 

 

(Wondering why I ever read *any* of the autobiographies at all. St Teresa would have been ok if she'd stopped writing at page 30. )

[Mom-ninja.]

That poor woman needed drugs. Serious drugs. That has to be the worst case of post partum psychosis ever.  :crying:

 

 

(Wondering why I ever read *any* of the autobiographies at all. St Teresa would have been ok if she'd stopped writing at page 30. )

 

Yes, that was all I could think when I read that book. The suffering that the mentally ill went through was horrible.

[melmichigan]

I'm also partway through yet another Kristen Ashley book, this one which was just released in paper:

Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain)

 

All of these are contemporary romances and all have something of a mystery element.  There is definite adult content.  I've enjoyed/am enjoying them all.

 

Regards,

Kareni

Dang that's a long one!

 

For Greek and Roman Mythology I finished The Odyssey.  It was an all day push today to read the last seven books, watch my lectures, and take the quiz.  Now I just need to try and keep up this weeks reading of Hesiod.

 

I also finished my last quiz for The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future, but I still have some readings to finish up.  It was very interesting and I plan to follow up with The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem, but I'm glad to have freed up more time for my own reading.

 

I finally got my hand on A Shiver of Light by Laurell K Hamilton.  I think this was the last book under her no edit clause, which would be good thing.  Is this supposed to be the final book in this series?

[Tress]

For Greek and Roman Mythology I finished The Odyssey.  It was an all day push today to read the last seven books, watch my lectures, and take the quiz.  Now I just need to try and keep up this weeks reading of Hesiod.

 

:hurray:

 

I'm still reading at book 22 20 (let's not get ahead of myself here :D) , so I'm running a bit late. But I don't plan on doing the quizzes or essays for real, so it doesn't really matter. Did you write the essay?

 

[Onceuponatime]

I'm still reading The Martian, "Houston be advised, Rich Purnell is a steely-eyed missile man." It helps that my dh is a fan of the movie Apollo 13, or I might not have understood some of the references. As it is, I'm sure I'm probably missing something, but it's holding my attention.

 

I read Utopia last year and don't really want to do it again. I keep Lost Horizon in my bedside stacks. It is one of my mostest favorite books of all time. I read it last year too, so I don't know if I will now. Some utopian/dystopian ideas are on my lists, but they don't look appealing right now. Maybe later.

 

I'm thinking of entering the 21st century and getting myself a tablet. There are a lot of books in e-version only, in my library system, that I want to read. I've resisted for so long but am finally feeling the lack.

[melmichigan]

:hurray:

 

I'm still reading at book 22 20 (let's not get ahead of myself here :D) , so I'm running a bit late. But I don't plan on doing the quizzes or essays for real, so it doesn't really matter. Did you write the essay?

 

No, I had already decided that I wouldn't try the first essay, things are just to crazy now.  I knew that it would force me to do the second essay if I want a certificate.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed over the second set of topic choices.

 

I'll be curious to hear what you think about book 24.  I'll admit there were many things I wouldn't have picked up on throughout the entire story without the lectures, but especially in the last few books.

[Tress]

No, I had already decided that I wouldn't try the first essay, things are just to crazy now.  I knew that it would force me to do the second essay if I want a certificate.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed over the second set of topic choices.

I missed the deadline for the second quiz, I had a migraine that lasted several days, so that was that :glare: .

Although I wasn't looking forward to the essays, writing a peer reviewed essay in English makes me nervous.

 

I'll be curious to hear what you think about book 24.  I'll admit there were many things I wouldn't have picked up on throughout the entire story without the lectures, but especially in the last few books.

I'll let you know!

 

I really like the professor so far, his enthousiasm is contagious. And I'm really enjoying The Odyssey, much more than I expected. It's a reread in the Fagles translation and I have read it twice before in different Dutch translations. It's getting better and more 'comfy' every time (ahum, comfy might not be the proper way to talk about such a classic....and obviously not when talking about all the slaughter...still, it's way more comfy than The Illiad :D).

[shukriyya]

I'm thinking of entering the 21st century and getting myself a tablet. There are a lot of books in e-version only, in my library system, that I want to read. I've resisted for so long but am finally feeling the lack.

I resisted an e-reader for a long time, too. But I got a Paperwhite for Christmas and have become a convert. Though there's nothing like the immediacy and tactile/sensory experience of reading an actual book an ereader is very convenient and has several features a book doesn't have--being able to adjust the font, a built-in the light, dictionary at one's fingertips as well as the fact that you have a library to draw from in a very small package. This past weekend I picked up six books for less than twelve dollars through the daily deals offer.

 

Speaking of which 'The Golem and the Jinni' won out over the Steampunk series. Ds is quite taken with the story and is about 40% of the way through. He came up to me at one point during the weekend and asked me if I'd started it yet and 'if not could it please be my next book?' Kind of hard to resist such youthful literary enthusiasm. He leaned over yesterday while he was reading on the couch amidst a crowd of family and friends and said, 'what I like about this is the pace and all the description. The Golem doesn't know anything and so the questions she asks mean the conversation can get quite deep.' :D Well, that was compelling enough commentary from my tween for me to pick it up last night. The story has gathered me in fairly quickly. My only ambivalence with it is the length, another 600+ pager!

[Tress]

I resisted an e-reader for a long time, too. But I got a Paperwhite for Christmas and have become a convert. Though there's nothing like the immediacy and tactile/sensory experience of reading an actual book but an ereader is very convenient and has several features a book doesn't have--being able to adjust the font, a built-in the light, dictionary at one's fingertips as well as the fact that you have a library to draw from in a very small package.

 

I have become a convert, too. I've been ill quiet a bit the last few weeks and reading in bed is so much easier with an ereader than with an actual book! And reading while eating (blush) is also much easier.

 

I can't get many ebooks from my library though, Dutch libraries are much behind American ones in that aspect.

(I would need to add another 30-euro-a-year subscription (to the regular 70 euro) to be able to loan 10 ebooks, only one at a time, and only from a very, very limited selection. Sigh. I'm waiting, people..... get moving with the times! :toetap05: )

 

[Jane in NC]

Tress,

 

I hope that you are feeling better this week.

 

By the way, my mother had a cousin named Tress.  What a lovely name!

 

 

Jane

[Tress]

Thanks, Jane!

[LostSurprise]

I'm working on a mini-challenge right now: read all the double-shelved books on the World Lit. shelf. I'm half way through the pile. 

 

I finished Embers and Night of Many Dreams over the last week. 

 

 

 

There was a lot to appreciate in the structure of this novel, and the way it illuminates the dissolved Austrio-Hungarian empire and the human heart. In many ways it's a very modern novel (the way it forgives and absolves) and in others it very much a product of its age and European heritage (the way it views Fate). I was very excited about this one at the beginning. The mystery of the two old friends meeting after 41 years to explore an old wound between the two of them. And Marai uses the structure to explore so many thoughts about love, life, and friendship. I appreciated that he attempted this, especially since the horrors of WWII were in full swing and this must have seemed like the time for Marai to condense his view of the life and propagate it out in the world while the world came down around him.  Unfortunately, what I assume to be this desperation and need to be heard creates a novel which is a monologue to the reader, perhaps even a sermon about life as Marai sees it. This can strike the reader in many ways; boredom at the resulting lack of closure to the plot, excitement that someone believes the same things about life and friendship, anger at being preached at. 

 

I suppose I would like this book better if I was younger and more in tune with the author. There were many things I agreed with, but also many that seemed simplistic. After 180 pages of monologue, I longed to reach some kind of resolution...to see the author dialogue! I wanted the main character to be challenged and broadened! Unfortunately (to my feeling), it was not to be so. The book is a vehicle, not a dialogue or exploration. I can respect Marai for creating it. I can see the craft in it, but I can not truly enjoy it. There is never a change for the characters. There was never meant to be a change for the characters. The act of the novel itself is a recording of what one character has learned over 40 years of self-imposed stagnation. Truly it has no life or movement and the characters would have been the same without the action. The novel itself is only the act of being heard. 

 

 

 

 

And I picked up Gail Tsukiyama's Night of Many Dreams somewhere in the last month or two. I enjoyed three of her other novels and it is a light read in the vein of Lisa See's books. This one follows two sisters in Hong Kong growing up during and after WWII. I enjoyed the place portrayals of Hong Kong, Macao, San Francisco. It was an easy, upbeat read which felt realistic enough to the time period and culture and did not devolve into major plot drama. The story was more interested in the two sisters, who they were, and how they would grow and develop after WWII. It felt like one of Tsukiyama's earlier novels, not that the quality was down or the history badly done. It felt like she was just exploring two characters without fully knowing what would happen in the end. The end was when she felt closure for them. 

 

Weekend before last I finished The Deportees, and Other Stories. 

 

 

 

It's a book of short stories involving immigrants in Ireland. One of the stories is a continuation of one of his better known novels, The Commitments. (It's also 

. I've seen the movie but I haven't read the book.) The stories were originally written for a magazine where he wrote installments of each story in 800 words. For a serious subject, Doyle has a really light tone and I enjoyed these stories. If you don't like language, you may not like this, but generally I thought he was funny and explored some interesting nuances of race, culture, identity, connection. 

 

Working on: 

 

Novel Without a Name~kind of a semi-poetic/crumbling idealism novel of the Vietnam War told from the North Vietnamese side

Espresso Tales~Scottish story of a father and daughter by the author of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

In Nonna's Kitchen~Italian grandmothers (in Italy), their recipes and lives

 

 

 

[Stacia]

LostSurprise, I read Embers a couple of years ago & enjoyed your review. I agree that it's beautiful in a way, but also takes a slow pace because stagnation is a major factor.

 

Finished Lexicon by Max Barry. Really enjoyed it for quick summer reading. Though it's probably a 'thriller' (or maybe dystopian & I've also seen sci-fi mentioned, though I can't figure that one out), it raises some really interesting questions in general & some very specific issues about our society today (invasive nature of social media, power of marketing, targeted marketing, etc...). It will appeal to bookish types who don't normally read thrillers, partly because the entire premise is based on the power of words & the ones who wield power are called 'poets', named after famous authors. Virginia Woolf & T.S. Eliot play a big role in here. Definitely recommended if you like that style book. I gave it 4 stars because I really enjoyed it -- fun but with some deeper questions & issues.

[Jane in NC]

Lost Surprise, thank you for your review of Embers. 

 

Also, I have a Gail Tsukiyama novel in my dusty stack. Any opinions on Women of the Silk?

 

 

[shukriyya]

Lost Surprise, thank you for your review of Embers.

 

Also, I have a Gail Tsukiyama novel in my dusty stack. Any opinions on Women of the Silk?

I read that years ago and remember really enjoying it. However it was quite a while ago so ymmv.

[Pam in CT]

<snip>

Today is the anniversary of the death of Sir Thomas More. He was tried for treason when he refused to sign the Act of Succession and when he refused to accept King Henry III as the head of the Church of England. He was beheaded on July 6, 1535 and his final words were "The King's good servant, but God's first."  He was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint in 1935. 

 

More wrote many works including Utopia, and popularized and influenced the genre of the Utopian literature. Utopia is essentially an ideal society and Dystopia is a society in decline, characterized by dehumanization, strife, or totalitarian government to name a few.  The earliest novel about a utopian society was The Republic written by Plato in 350BC.   Dystopia, an offshoot of Utopian literature, was popularized in the early 1900's.

 

Since SWB includes Thomas More's Utopia in the list of great history/political reads in Well Educated Mind, now seems like a good time to read it....

 

Hmmm.  I've never quite found the fortitude to make my way through Utopia... I feel a bit like:

 

... I'll find my copy of Utopia and flip through it and see if I can get myself to read it.

 

 

 

 

My next fiction choice is Helen Dunmore's novel The Siege--I just can't let go out WWII.  The novel, set in Leningrad in 1941, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and the Orange Prizes in 2002.

 

Jane, I read this when it first came out and I still remember it vividly.  You just finished City of Thieves, right?  I just picked that one up from the library...

 

 

<snip>

 

This is a quote by John Green.

 

 

Which books have made you feel that way?

Can you list your top 5?

At this point in time, I would say the following:

1. Harry Potter series
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick

 

Wow.  That is a serious challenge...  that I'm actually not sure how to approach... some of the books that have moved me most deeply and substantively changed me and how I have approached the next phase of my life affected me for such extremely specific-to-me reasons... and that resonance was so deep precisely because it struck a particular personal chord at a particular juncture of my life.  The opposite of universal applicability, in a sense...

 

... so while I do keep a mental list of Books That Have Transformed *My* Life (eg, I mentioned The Faith Club, last week), that's not the question I think you're posing... your marvelous quote is asking about books that have a more universal transformational potential.  And I love the language in which it's expressed: "the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until..." (this language echoes a particular construct within Judaism) "... all living humans read the book" (which has its own resonance...).

 

You asked for five; three came instantly to mind:

 

Night, by Elie Wiesel

My Name is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (sorry, y'all, I can't stop yakking about this book)

 

I will think some more about others... Thanks for posing the question.

 

 

 

I resisted an e-reader for a long time, too. But I got a Paperwhite for Christmas and have become a convert. Though there's nothing like the immediacy and tactile/sensory experience of reading an actual book an ereader is very convenient and has several features a book doesn't have--being able to adjust the font, a built-in the light, dictionary at one's fingertips as well as the fact that you have a library to draw from in a very small package. This past weekend I picked up six books for less than twelve dollars through the daily deals offer.

:iagree: There's nothing like reading a review of a book on, say, BAW, and being able to click through and have it in your greedy little hands within 60 seconds.  A beautiful and dangerous thing!

[Kareni]

... Kristen Ashley   ...

 

 

 

Dang that's a long one!

 

 

All of her books that I've read have been in the 500 to 700 page range.  Since I enjoy her books, I don't mind; in fact, I feel like I'm getting my money's worth!

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Pam in CT]

So, since I last reported in, which I think was two Mondays ago, I finished... Second Person Singular, by Sayed Kashua, which was I think Stacia's recommendation.  He's an Arab Israeli, and the narrative shifts between Jewish, Arab citizen, and Arab non-citizen communities as it explores issues of personal identity.  Very interesting; hard to say too much about it without doing spoilers; well worth reading.

 

Also, Anna Porter's Kasztner's Train: The True Story of an Unknown Hero of the Holocaust, which relays Reszo Kasztner's efforts to negotiate with Eichmann and other Nazi officials to save Hungarian Jews, and his subsequent trial in Jerusalem for collaboration and ultimate assassination.  I was unfamiliar with this historical episode, and came to it through a rather circuitous bibliography-hopping route... well researched and, I think, fairly even-handed in its treatment of a very controversial figure.

 

I wouldn't ordinarily count a comic book, but Roz Chast's account of her parents' final years, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?: A Memoir defies categorization and is so well worth reading that I feel moved to recommend it... a pitch perfect balance of love, fear, anguish, frustration and moments-of-fury as her father suffers dementia and both suffer physical decline.  Really good.

 

At Negin's recommendation (thank you Negin!) I read Justice St Rain's My Baha'i Faith: A Personal Tour of the Baha'i Teachings, a very accessible overview.

 

I also made my way through Jane Gerber's The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience, which I came to because I wanted more background on that, having recently finished Judah Halevi's pilgrimage poems...

 

And my daughter and I finished listening to Eragon on our drive up to her camp.

 

 

She and I started the next in the series, Eldest, which thus far isn't as engaging (and at 22 hours, it had better step up soon...) but I won't make any further progress on that one until I pick her up at the end of her session.  I am myself listening to Heidi Durrow's The Girl Who Fell From the Sky, a coming-of-age novel about a biracial  young girl ... layered and nuanced and so heartbreaking I'm not sure I'll be able to finish it... and I'm reading Abdu'l Baha's pilgrimage story, In Their Midst; and now that I've turned my geographical glance towards Pakistan I've started Jamil Ahmad's Wandering Falcon, which I think Jane recommended...

[LostSurprise]

Also, I have a Gail Tsukiyama novel in my dusty stack. Any opinions on Women of the Silk?

 

I liked that one (although I liked Garden of the Samurai a smidge better...can't remember why). I think there's another one with the same character (Pei?) and what she does afterward.  It's a nice women-centered story dealing with the female-dominated making of silk in Chinese factories before WWII. I think the feminist aspect is uplifting, even though the author shows us the complexities of women needing to work away from home (and how that's viewed in patriarchal Chinese society) and the ways they could be victimized alongside the ways it made them independent. 

 

Last year, when I was reading Vampires in the Lemon Grove, Karen Russell had an interesting short story "Reeling for the Empire" which took the same basic situation outlined in Women of the Silk and then turned it on its head. Lots more fantasy, horror, and in the end female vengeance on male and corporate dominance. 

 

 

 

 

Which books have made you feel that way?

Can you list your top 5?

At this point in time, I would say the following:

1. Harry Potter series
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick

 

I have trouble with this one. Other than scriptures (which teach moral imperatives and social wisdom), I think it's patronizing to think that any one book or books can fix a shattered world. Or that any one book can be everything to everybody. 

 

 

 

I can list books that have been important to me, or books which I think are important because they teach human truths, but I've never felt that everyone MUST feel the way I do about any book. 

 

Member of the Wedding by CarsonMcCullers: Another example of how differently one sees things at different ages... I was Frankie's age when I read this... how different it looks now that I am Berenice's age (or thereabouts).  I still don't see it as being about Frankie's sexual identity, as some reviewers assert, but I guess it is possible.

 

 

I've never thought about this being about her sexual identity...only so much as it's about her developing identity and her longing to be a part of the community. She wants to be noticed and a part of things, not ignored and left in the corner. Childhood is just another symptom of abandonment. 

 

I certainly think that intimate relationships and sex are one way to belong, and certainly many girls walk that road when what they really want is to be accepted. I've always felt that Frankie was struggling into adulthood with all the ghosts of her family's neglect pushing and nudging her along her along the way. I think that makes her a very interesting character. One part bravada, one part vulnerability, both feed each other and make complete sense. 

 

I haven't read it in 10 years or so though. I read it when I had very young boys. 

[LostSurprise]

 

It is always so interesting to hear someone else's reaction to a book!

 

For me, the book succeeded perfectly, though when I read some of his other books, the inwardness and the monologue-ness didn't work as well.

 

The arc of the book is, as you say, very much an inward one, and all the movement is there.  For me, that was fascinating and moving, but I can see that it might not work for everyone.

 

 

I read Embers in a single sitting.  I don't know it if would have worked as well if I'd read it in bits and pieces - and I know his other books dragged for me in places...

 

 

I don't mind inwardness generally, or life philosophy/navel gazing, quite the opposite really, but this book left no room for anything outside the main character. We don't even know how true his story is (which has created his philosophy of life) because the author doesn't allow there to be any dialogue. The only credulity given the story comes when we resonate with it. The novel reads as a well-constructed frame allowing Marai to tell us about life. We either resonate with his philosophy or not. It loses poignancy for me...perhaps because the artificiality reveals Marai's lack of interest in the characters and story. 

 

I did think that the author's movement between past and present was necessary to create some movement in the story. Marai did to a good job keeping things going as best he could. 

 

Probably many feel as you do though, it gets great reviews on Amazon. :) 

[Robin M]

Negin, that is such a hard question and I'm glad to see it was equally hard for the other ladies.  I'm drawing a blank which is kind of sad, because that either means I haven't read anything of substance that rocked my world, or I've read too many and it's too hard to narrow down.  Will have to brainstorm when I have some quiet time.

 

 

 

 

 

Reading through your posts today prompted this thought. Are you ready for a loaded question?  Since so many of you don't like the lists in WEM, what books would you include in the great lists for each category.  

 

Running away now.....

[aggieamy]

 

IMG-20140620-WA0005.jpg

 

Welcome back!  What a beautiful little thing.  You are so lucky!

[CAMom]

Hi Everyone~

 

Haven't posted in a while but I read the thread nearly every week. :) 

 

Preparing for change here...Dd and I traveled at the end of May to attend our speech and debate league's national tournament where she competed. She graduated from high school a couple of weeks later. She is leaving this Saturday to work two week on staff at Worldview Academy. She'll be home for two weeks and then it's time to take her to college all the way across the country.

 

I've been spending as much time with her as I possibly can! I start to feel anxious every time I think about her leaving home. I enjoy her so much and having her leave is going to be so hard.

 

I have been reading, though. :) I have finished 34 books so far this year.

 

One I read recently that I really enjoyed was Howard's End is on the Landing; A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill. 

 

I am currently reading:

 

The Fog Within by Nick Shamhart

 

Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley and Harry Lodge

 

The Core by Leigh Bortins

 

As always, I'm enjoying seeing what you all are reading and am constantly adding to my Goodreads list! :)

[Angel]

Hi gals!  We are back from our youth group's annual history trip.  What a blast!  Dh and I took 11 kids aged 12-19 on a tour of some Baptist history sites that then tied in seamlessly with our American History sites.  We ended the trip in Williamsburg and saw the fireworks with about 10,000 other people who all converged on our nice little spot  :eek:   We were at Montpelier the day it was 96 degrees with a heat index of 108!!  That was also the day that the rental van's AC broke down at 10 in the morning. :001_rolleyes:  It was a hot drive back to Williamsburg.  We got a small slice of Arthur Thursday night with some winds Friday morning while at Yorktown.  I enjoyed our trip and spending time with the kids.  It's great to see them learning things that schools have conveniently forgotten to teach them.  It was also great to see the tour guide at Montpelier and the actors at Williamsburg confirm the role of the Baptist ministers in the Revolutionary War.  A bit unexpected that but exciting to see the kids make the connections.  I didn't want to come home!  Dh and one of the other girls caught a cold at the tail end of the trip and have now passed it on to myself and my older dd, so I'm a little miserable with a fever but glad to get caught up on the threads here!  I obviously didn't do any reading over the past week!  Dh runs us pretty hard and I just fall into bed at the end of the day  ;)

 

Since SWB includes Thomas More's Utopia in the list of great history/political reads in Well Educated Mind, now seems like a good time to read it.  

The theme of the month for July, if you haven't guessed by now, :001_smile:  is reading Utopian/Dystopian novels.

 

 

Have always wanted to read Utopia only because it was Danielle's favorite book from her father in Ever After.

 

Dystopian is really one of my least favorite genre's (I've kind of mentioned that before  :o ) so I will gladly skip that challenge.

 

On an unexpected whim I read The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I have not and will not read the Twilight series, but this book hooked me. It was a bit too long winded (did she get paid by the word like Dickens?) and very very predictable. However, it was enjoyable brain candy.

 

I loved this book!  I, unlike many, loved the Twilight books, but was skeptical of The Host because sci-fi is less my thing than fantasy.  I was pleasantly surprised and couldn't put it down.

 

And for the record, I like my rhubarb raw and sour!

 

And I received another postcard.  I'm so jealous, Jane, that you actually LIVE there!!

[Violet Crown]

I read More's Utopia in 2013, so I'll just be smug over here in the corner.

 

Well into volume 2 of The Decameron. I had to laugh when I got to the infamous Tenth Story of the Third Day; in my edition, the translator had left the explicit parts in Italian! Ah, how far our Fifty Shades of Gray world has traveled from those days. (In which direction, I'm not sure.) Anyhow my Latin and French, limited as they are, plus knowing the story, made it not too difficult to work through.

 

A brief break while I read W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk, which I'm supposed to discuss with Middle Girl later this year for American History, and is one of those books I could tell you much about but have never actually read. So fixing that now.

[Pam in CT]

 

 

And for the record, I like my rhubarb raw and sour!

 

 

RAW??!  My  mother always assured me it was POISONOUS to eat raw, lol!

 

(But I've printed out that lamb-and-rhubarb tangine and plan to make it the next rainy spell...)

[Jane in NC]

Jane, I read this when it first came out and I still remember it vividly.  You just finished City of Thieves, right?  I just picked that one up from the library...

 

No, I have not read City of Thieves.  Hmmm...looks quite good.

 

Re-emerging....

 

I had a beautiful, but much too short, visit with my daughter and son-in-law... and their precious little one.

 

...and then I came home and have been regrouping ever since.  ...and looking forward to them visiting us - next month, G-d willing.

 

Well we missed you but we will share you with your grandchild.  ;)

 

I think Negin didn't mean that we really think everyone should (or would) react the way we do to the books, but that feeling one gets after reading certain books... where I want to press it upon all my friends and relations... I think I gave everyone copies of Connie Willis's Passage the year I read it... (Fortunately, everyone I gave it to loved it)...

 

The only time I have every serious felt everyone in the world should experience something I loved was after seeing the most incredible production of Merchant of Venice... but stage performances aren't sharable that way....

 

The book that has probably most shaped my life and given me peace during difficult times is T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets.  I wore out a copy of the book, by which I mean that it was held together with a rubber band. I was careful to replace it with an edition that has a sewn spine.

 

Another book--well cycle of six books--that I had to share but only with my best friend was Olivia Manning's Fortunes of War series.  My friend had gone through a difficult divorce.  Her ex was mirrored in Guy Pringle.  She probably did not need to spend hours with her ex, but I did.  I could never understand why my friend's ex did what he did--Guy Pringle did not produce sympathy in me, but he helped me see something in my friend's relationship with her ex.

 

 

Hi gals!  We are back from our youth group's annual history trip.  What a blast! 

 

 

And I received another postcard.  I'm so jealous, Jane, that you actually LIVE there!!

Sounds like a great trip, Angel. 

 

The grass is always greener...I envy those with cultural opportunities which are lacking in my slice of paradise.

[Pink and Green Mom]

No, I have not read City of Thieves.  Hmmm...looks quite good.

 

 

I loved City of Thieves.  A few parts were stomach churning but it was a great book.

[mumto2]

I love my ereader and am so grateful to be able to library books on it.  Love being able to grab the kindle on my way out the door and know I have everything I need bookwise at least. An added advantage is I can read the kindle while riding in the car almost always,  I can only read books on expressways normally without nausea.

 

I am 10 percent through Jonathan Strange and hoping to be able to read at least 10 percent a day.  Not normally so disciplined but I don't always read that much on the kindle.  Another kindle advantage is a 1000 page book weighs the same in my hands as 100 pages.  This is another one of those things that I can't believe that I am moaning about but chunky books frequently make my hands hurt.  I feel so old admitting that one.

 

I finished Larkswood by Valerie Mendes.  Reveiws compared it to the Forsyth Saga,  I don't agree fwiw.  I did not care for the Forsyths and this wasn't bad. Also it had two distinct time periods that it concentrated on not a sweeping long period with every event detailed like many sagas.  To be honest I waited for it for several weeks and the request queue behind me is long.  Felt a bit obligated. I did like the ending quite a bit.  

 

 

[Stacia]

I, too, loved City of Thieves. Not sure I would have picked it up on my own, but my book club chose it. So glad we did...

[Pam in CT]

Back in from the garden, having spent much of the afternoon dividing the astilbe and mulling over Negin's gauntlet:

 

 

 

Which books have made you feel that way?
Can you list your top 5?
At this point in time, I would say the following:

1. Harry Potter series
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
3. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
4. Pride & Prejudice
5. Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick

 

 

... which I understood in a very different way than LostSurprise:

 

...I have trouble with this one. Other than scriptures (which teach moral imperatives and social wisdom), I think it's patronizing to think that any one book or books can fix a shattered world. Or that any one book can be everything to everybody. 

 

 

 

I can list books that have been important to me, or books which I think are important because they teach human truths, but I've never felt that everyone MUST feel the way I do about any book. 

 

... first because I've been in way too many "lively" book discussions over the years to believe that there's ever a "right way" to read or feel about any book, lol, 

 

... but more because I ultimately find differences between different people's readings of the same book to be more interesting, and more fun, and more informative than when there is consensus... of course it's nice and validating when others agree with my reading, and I enjoy a good dose of validation as much as the next person  :laugh: , but I learn more, and grow more, when someone else's different reading opens up a new perspective for me...

 

For me, what elevates a book from "enjoyable" to "makes an enduring impact" is that it opens up new pathways for me -- sparks follow-up questions, gets me scamperling through the bibliography, leaves me musing "OK - given that, now what?"  It is fundamentally an open-ended experience; it would not be possible for anyone else to experience it in the same way....

 

... and yet, I don't think I understood in quite the way Eliana did either:

I think Negin didn't mean that we really think everyone should (or would) react the way we do to the books, but that feeling one gets after reading certain books... where I want to press it upon all my friends and relations... I think I gave everyone copies of Connie Willis's Passage the year I read it... (Fortunately, everyone I gave it to loved it)...

 

The only time I have ever seriously felt everyone in the world should experience something I loved was after seeing the most incredible production of Merchant of Venice... but stage performances aren't sharable that way....

 

 

... because, for example, I recently started vermicomposting here in my little corner of the world, and happen to feel rather evangelical about it at the moment, and am eager to press Mary Appelhof's Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System into the hands of all my family and friends... but despite my enthusiasm for redworms I don't seriously believe that they will be the agents to healing our broken world...

 

 

 

... and yet I think there is a role for books, particularly literature.  Not because we'd ever all actually read any single book, however terrific; and certainly not because even if we did we'd all respond to it the same way (I think these threads pretty much prove That Would Never Happen!), but because literature has the capacity to evoke empathy for characters very different from ourselves... and at the risk of sounding very very silly: I actually do believe that increasing our collective capacity to see a spark of the divine/eternal (however understood) in every other human being is precisely what will heal the world...

 

 

OK, I'll go back to rhubarb now... :leaving:

[Pam in CT]

More re: books to heal the world...

 

That is probably the hardest book list question I have ever seen.

 

...and I think I would answer differently each time I saw the question.

 

Right now, this minute, I'd say:

 

1) Middlemarch by  George Eliot - The web of human interconnectedness, the aspiration-al-ness and compassion at the heart of it... the integrity.

 

2) Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold - I'm in an intense place right now... the memorial service I went to for the 3 Israeli boys, and their deaths themselves, have me shaken and feeling the intensity of maternal love and aspiration and the horror and... well, other things, at seeing children (any children) caught up in an inferno...  Bujold is not literary, by any stretch of the imagination, but the heart of this book is motherhood... and motherhood in the midst of conflict and loss and hard choices.  [i don't know how this would read without having read Shards of Honor... I've linked the single ebook above, here's the omnibus Cordelia's Honor]

 

3) One Generation After by Elie Wiesel - Night is intensely immediate... this reflection and processing of the, decades later, aftermath, is, imho, even more essential to read (sorry, Pam!).

 

4) All My Sons by Arthur Miller - Miller's masterpiece, imho, and one I have been trying to press on people since I encountered it at 16...

 

This is the hardest spot to fill... too many pulls.

 

5) To Heal a Fractured World: The Ethics of Responsibility by Rabbi Sacks - I read this last year, and keep coming back to it... 

 

...but if you ask me again next week, or next year, I'd answer differently...

 

I actually have never read One Generation After, so... now I'll do that.  

 

What makes me shiver in Night each time I go back to it is not (just) how he processes what others did to him, but (also) how brutally he confronts what he himself became in those circumstances... that unforgettable scene with his father's bread...

 

 

How surreal is Second Person Singular?  I am intrigued by it, but unsure about it...

 

Kasztner's Train sounds fascinating - thank you!

 

I made it through Eragon (barely), but could not take any of the sequels.  My husband martyred himself for the second and third, but neither of us could face the fourth.  (A very valiant older sister trudged through - earning the gratitude of the younger ones who wanted to see what happened...)  Hatzlacha.

 

There's no magic of any sort in Second Person Singular -- the considerable weirdness is solely that of the human heart... whether it crosses the line into "surreal" depends imo on how "real" the reader understands the psychological motivations of the two characters principally enmeshed in the weirdness.  The motivation of the protagonist is perfectly clear and makes straightforward linear sense; that of the secondary character is trickier, and for the first half or so it seemed implausible (and therefore potentially surreal) to me, but as more of the backstory emerged, it got less surreal though more tragic... and then there is a third character who may or may not also be enmeshed, depending on just how unreliable you read the narrator to be... 

 

I'd be interested in your take on it.

 

 

Fortunately for me, I think my daughter was as underwhelmed as I was by the bits of Eldest that we got into... I expect if I "disappeared" the disks she'd be just fine with that!

 

[Mom-ninja.]

Five books I consider must reads:

 

1. The Book Thief

2. Harry Potter (am I allowed to repeat Negin's suggestion?)

3. Moral Animal

4. Winnie the Pooh

5. Hold on to Your Kids

[Violet Crown]

I'm with Pam; I can think of the books that have been transformational for me, a few of which changed the direction my life took, but really not books that created an evangelical zeal. I suppose the last books I tried hard to push on other people were War and Peace, and Housman's A Shropshire Lad. And Endo's Silence; that was the only book I suggested to my (now defunct) book club that anybody else in the club actually liked. Sometimes I feel all depressed how many of the books I've loved that other people can't abide. A few months ago there was even a whole fifteen-minutes hate on the Chat Board dedicated to the book I loved and re-read the most as a child. Sniff.

 

Anyhow, here's a chunk from Boccaccio, wherein the monk Rustico educates the young aspirant Alibech in the most acceptable method of devotion:

 

------------------------------------------------

 

He began by giving her a long lecture on the great enmity that subsists between God and the Devil; after which he gave her to understand that, God having condemned the Devil to hell, to put him there was of all services the most acceptable to God. The girl asking him how it might be done, Rustico answered: 'Thou shalt know it in a trice; thou hast but to do that which thou seest me do.' Then, having divested himself of his scanty clothing, he threw himself stark naked on his knees, as if he would pray; whereby he caused the girl, who followed his example, to confront him in the same posture.

 

E cosi stando, essendo Rustico piu che mai nel suo disiderio acceso per lo vederla cosi bella venne la resurrezione della carne, la quale reguardando Alibech e maravigliatasi, disse:

 

--Rustico, quella cosa che e che io ti veggio che cosi si pigne in fuori, e non l' ho io?

 

--O figliuola mia, disse Rustico, questo e il diavolo di che io t' ho parlato: e vedi tu? Ora egli mi da grandissima molestia, tanta che io appena la posso dofferire.

[Pam in CT]

I'm with Pam; I can think of the books that have been transformational for me, a few of which changed the direction my life took, but really not books that created an evangelical zeal. I suppose the last books I tried hard to push on other people were War and Peace, and Housman's A Shropshire Lad. And Endo's Silence; that was the only book I suggested to my (now defunct) book club that anybody else in the club actually liked. Sometimes I feel all depressed how many of the books I've loved that other people can't abide. A few months ago there was even a whole fifteen-minutes hate on the Chat Board dedicated to the book I loved and re-read the most as a child. Sniff.

 

Anyhow, here's a chunk from Boccaccio, wherein the monk Rustico educates the young aspirant Alibech in the most acceptable method of devotion:

 

------------------------------------------------

 

E cosi stando, essendo Rustico piu che mai nel suo disiderio acceso per lo vederla cosi bella venne la resurrezione della carne, la quale reguardando Alibech e maravigliatasi, disse:

 

--Rustico, quella cosa che e che io ti veggio che cosi si pigne in fuori, e non l' ho io?

 

--O figliuola mia, disse Rustico, questo e il diavolo di che io t' ho parlato: e vedi tu? Ora egli mi da grandissima molestia, tanta che io appena la posso dofferire.

 

:lol: Google-translate THAT, bay-by...

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/m9n6U.gif

[Robin M]

We have lift off. The "R" project has been completed and winging its way across the ocean. Splash down approximately two weeks.   Thanks everybody!!!!       :grouphug:

[prairiegirl]

I finally finished The Raphael Affair  by Iain Pears.  It was an okay read but I am not sure if I will read any more Pears books.

 

I am now reading  Parnassus on Wheels  by Christopher Morley.   What a delightful read!  It is a book about books--a  disgruntled spinster buys a traveling book business.  I am eager to get some reading time later tonight to see how it all unfolds.

 

 

[LostSurprise]

I'm with Pam; I can think of the books that have been transformational for me, a few of which changed the direction my life took, but really not books that created an evangelical zeal. I suppose the last books I tried hard to push on other people were War and Peace, and Housman's A Shropshire Lad. And Endo's Silence; that was the only book I suggested to my (now defunct) book club that anybody else in the club actually liked. Sometimes I feel all depressed how many of the books I've loved that other people can't abide. A few months ago there was even a whole fifteen-minutes hate on the Chat Board dedicated to the book I loved and re-read the most as a child. Sniff.

 

This is very much how I feel. Perhaps I live among too many non-readers or readers of one specific author or genre. Proselytizing is kind of unthinkable IRL. 

 

 

Of course, now one wonders what hated book left dear Violet Crown in tears. 

[Violet Crown]

Stuart Little.

[Kareni]

Today I read and enjoyed Pure Heat (Firehawks) which is the first of a new series by M. L. Buchman.

 

"These daredevil smokejumpers fight more than fires.
The elite fire experts of Mount Hood Aviation fly into places even the CIA can't penetrate.

 

She lives to fight fires

Carly Thomas could read burn patterns before she knew the alphabet. A third-generation forest fire specialist who lost both her father and her fiancé to the flames, she's learned to live life like she fights fires: with emotions shut down.

 

But he's lit an inferno she can't quench

Former smokejumper Steve "Merks" Mercer can no longer fight fires up close and personal, but he can still use his intimate knowledge of wildland burns as a spotter and drone specialist. Assigned to copilot a Firehawk with Carly, they take to the skies to battle the worst wildfire in decades and discover a terrorist threat hidden deep in the Oregon wilderness—but it's the heat between them that really sizzles."

 

I'd previously read a number of Buchman's novels in his military romance Nightstalkers series; this book has several characters from that series playing significant roles.

 

Regards,

Kareni