Book Me

Ahem. . .

This has post has been kicking around, for, well awhile. But, I was doing some Christmas baking, and my mum came for coffee, and now it's late and my teeth really hurt and I don't have a post for today. So, consider this a burst of summer memories, in a wintry moment, would you?

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Slate has Obama's summer reading list up. Now, it seems to me, but asking to see someone's reading list, especially a summer one, is like asking: boxers or briefs.

It's a fundamentally personal question that gets given all sorts of meanings that aren't necessarily true, and more than that, no one is going to answer really honestly anyway.

You may have noticed that I'm a book person. Not just a reader, but a book lover. A reader reads, a book lover enjoys everything about books. A book lover goes to books first. A book lover buys books for the sake of having them.

I'm not sure that it matters, but I haven't watched television in at least 6 months. (I think the last show was a Discovery production about King Tut. Egyptology is a secret love of mine). The last television series I watched was the West Wing, which went off the air in 2006 (Oh, how I miss thee Toby).

And about the only thing that might tell you, knowing that I don't watch TV and I read obsessively, is that much like anything else, there are some books I will cop to reading, and there are some that I won't. You can go and look at any book lovers list. They will effectively have 2 piles. The living room pile (Wayson Choy's Not Yet, Julie and Julia, A Prairie Mennonite Woman's history, The Book of Negro's and a re-read of Mansfield Park).

Ahh, by my bed. Yes, well. If you really want to know what a book lover reads, check out beside their bed. Next to the loo. In their home study. Those books are in helter skelter piles. Some books stay in the pile for a long time. You can see what books I've been trying to read for a year (Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hayes) and more. I've been buying book series. Much the same way that people buy television series, but possibly more pulpy. There you'll find Elizabeth Peter's - both her Amelia Peabody and her Vicky Bliss books. You'll find the Aunt Dimity books, and an Ian Rankin Novel. I've got The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson (and I'm not sure what the heck happened here - I sat up until 1:30 am reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

And so I feel for your President. I'd die if my list got publicized. I really would.

Sometimes a book is just a book.

The Lost Symbol

Dear Mr. Brown:

I have to confess, I was a little bit embarrassed that I was looking forward to your book as much as I was. I refused to order it in advance, but really, I did want to read it. I was excited about it. I knew that I was going to do about the only thing I can do with your books, buy them, curl up on the couch, and read them in an entire sitting. Since I read extraordinarily quickly, this meant that I should be able to read all 509 pages in one sitting, about 4 hours. A headache meant it took only slightly longer.

I liked Da Vinci code. The theology was profoundly ahem, dubious, and the history was dead wrong, but it was a quick read, engaging, and active. I mean a race through the streets of Paris, and Leonardo? How could that be bad? I liked Angels and Demons, and found the science interesting, and I liked the inclusion of the Catholic Priest (although, I wondered what it is you have against organized religion)

So, I was prepared. I was prepared for wrongness, I was prepared for bad history and junk science. I was prepared for carved up people and weird mystical orders and strange symbols. That is, after all, your stock in trade. I knew that you were going to use some bit of scripture, wrongly, and I was going to have to explain to people that the Bible uses that verse, yes, but not the way Mr. Brown says it does.

Maybe, Mr. Brown, it escaped you - what with the quest for religious mumbo-jumbo, junk science and strange hidden orders that exist among us, maybe it escaped you what the job of a writer really is. There is a sort of contract between writers and readers, Mr. Brown. You agree to do some things, and so do I.

For my part, I agree to suspend my disbelief and any insistence on characters who act logically, not expect you to get theology correct, not expect you to get geography correct, and not think to closely about the odd coincidences and the torturous logic that gets Robert Langdon in these situations. I do this because the entire point of any book, at least on some level is to be entertained, and as near as I can figure it, the only redeeming quality of your books, is that they entertain me.

So, Mr. Brown, if I agree to do all of those things - what do you agree to do? Oh, yes. That's right. You agree to write a new book. A new piece of fiction, where new things happen, and there is a cliff hanger that I can't see miles away. You agree to not just change the location, but also the characters and the premise. You agree to write a novel that is, well, novel.

And this, Mr. Brown, is not a new book. No, sir, you gave it a new title, and you changed the location, and you changed the name of a few characters, but it is not a new book.

You changed the name of the characters sir, but you didn't create new characters. There's an elderly fatherly figure, there's a beautiful and smart woman, there's a police inspector (ok, it's a woman this time) and there's a shadowy evil man in the background, consumed with quasi religious demons, who's really actually mentally ill. And sir, that is the exact - I mean exact - set of characters as the Da Vinci Code, and as Angels and Demons. And sir, the discovery at the end of the Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Lost Symbol, it is the same discovery. Oh, different words, but always a play on words, always the central truth that (insert dramatic music here) everything you know is wrong.

And Sir, I'm not sure how many times you and I can go through this fiction of you pretending to write a new book, and me pretending to be surprised by a conclusion I predicted at about page 4. If you want to write about truths that turn everything on their heads, if you wanted to write about conspiracies, write about how Doubleday has published the same book, by the same author, 3 times, calling it a new book.

That Sir? That's a conspiracy I have something invested in.

(about $20)

Apathy

The, well, not problem, but the thing about reading a lot is that you often find yourself reading several books at one time. In my case, fiction and non-fiction, at the same time, and then you find yourself making connections.

I'm reading Madeline L'Engle's Austin Series, and I'm in Book 3. And I'll blog a bit more about the books as a whole, but I think it's worth talking about Apathy. I'm listening to 3 religious characters, a Rabbi, a Methodist and an Anglican (which sounds like a joke and isn't) and I'm hearing them all say just about the same thing. Obedience is its own form of freedom and apathy is a sin.

A recent prescription change has left me very ill, needing to be close to my washroom, and I've been sitting at home. (And that's enough said about that, trust me)Effectively I have a book going in every room, and I get about 45 minutes, before my attention is distracted. I'm also reading Barbra Colorosso's book about Bullying, in which she talks about roles, and the roles we play and the roles we force our children into. She spends a fair bit of time talking about not just bullies and their victims, but about the bystanders who watch, and the options open to them. She talks about apathy as the main reason bullies have power. They have power because we don't care enough, we aren't skilled enough, to intervene. And then I'm reading through Colin Thatcher's defense that he didn't kill his wife. And a bit of PPZ.

As part of a whole thing on forgiveness, I've been thinking about apathy. I've been thinking about enough and going the extra mile, and just being a bystander. If I had a goal in life, it would be to never be a mere bystander. To stand up and be counted, to respond to my fellow human beings. To not give what is easy, what is convenient, what is 'just enough' but more. To involve myself in someone's life. To make time for others.

And I'm not particularly successful. I'm still self absorbed, wrapped up in my own life, but still, working on it.

A day spent, looking at the problem of apathy. It's not a bad way to spend it.

Word of the Day
Labia

Literary Friend and Foe

I'm sure it was November, on the prairies, in my first year of University. It didn't snow until Christmas that year, I'm sure, and if my memory serves, Bryan and I had broken up, and I don't think we had gotten back together yet, and Mikhela, his daughter was living with me, off and on, but I remember it being more on, and often her infant sister was with her. And if it was November, I had almost certainly spectacularly failed the Calculus 115 midterm, with a 20%.

My mother was determined, in June of the spring before, and then, as she had been for my entire life, that no daughter of hers was going to a community college, to learn basket weaving. And so I found myself, from a graduating class of 5, in a lecture theater of 400. I had not learned the secrets of making a large place seem small. I didn't know about making a friend in each class, starting small. I knew no one at university, save the man I was dating, and at 19 I still seemed to lack social skills and graces. I had turned down the orientation, assured by the boyfriend I would not be dating much longer, that he would show me around. I didn't join a club, find a service group, I wasn't the sorority type, and I think I found the Anglican Chaplain, but I seem to recall he quit shortly after I arrived, and I never did go back. I was ill prepared for the life I was leading, lost, broken and tired.

In HUB mall, there was, and probably still is, a discount seller of books. I went looking and amidst the odd sociology texts that may have been a text last year, over sized coffee table books of artists I had never heard of, there was a Patricia Cornwell book.

In the midst of drowning, being lost in that unhappy and lonely place, I took my Patrica Cornwell novel to the pedway between HUB and the Arts building, where it overlooked Rutherford house, and I sat and read. I hadn't learned about the other, secret and quiet places at the University: the Periodical Reading Room in the Rutherford South, the Green house in the Ag and Forestry building, the museum in the faculty of Home Ec, the sunny spots in SUB, and the peaceful chapel at the Catholic residence.

I spent an afternoon devouring the book, a forensic pathologist, gruesome and sadistic murders, dysfunctional relationships, an adulterous affair. Utterly different than the life I was not leading well. Pure, escapist fantasy. I actually kept up with Patricia Cornwell through the years it took me to finally finish my degree (I started in 97, and my degree says 2005). From her I moved into Kathy Reichs, then on to JD Robb. I finally stopped reading Cornwell about 4 years ago, when things got utterly crazy, but I would stop people who were reading the new books, asking them what was happening to the story.

And all of this is a droll and somewhat literary way of getting to the point. I was reading one of Ian Rankin's books last night. I'm new to him, he arrived in the house shortly after Gabe's death, when someone brought books. And this particular book is about a serial killer. After the insanity and depravity that is Robb and Cornwell, quite tame.

And yet.

I cannot read it. I came home from the hospital after Gabe's birth, and I picked up the JD Robb book I was reading, and I could not read it. The violence, the hatred, the pain, the atrocity of all of it was too raw. Salt in a wound.

And I found myself putting the book down last night. Not putting it on the shelf, but bundling it in the bag for the book sale, half read. And actually contemplating if I wanted to foist it off on someone at all. Wondering if I should throw it out completely.

(I assure you, Mr. Spit and I, of the 2000 book library, do not throw out books. In fact, we don't seem to give them away much.)

It astonishes me. I cannot read these books. I put down Rankin, and picked up the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

And the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie society is a heartbreaking book. But it is real. Pain and tragedy is measured out by love and joy.

And if I had to guess why I can't read the likes of JD Robb and Ian Rankin, it is this. I have known pain and sorrow and terror.

I chose joy.

Good Reads

I read Nicholas D. Kristoff's column in the New York Times, which really means not much of anything, other than it's a good column, and you should read it, and maybe you should take one of the more obscure causes that it features, and maybe you should write a letter to your government people or send some money to a cause, or maybe even just tell people that there are still slaves in our world.

Kristoff happened, just before the 4th of July, to have a column on children's books. He was asking for children's book recommendations, and talking about his own favourites. And I read along, nodding. And thinking.

I read the comments, as I was curious about what other people remembered from their childhood. And there was someone, like there is always someone, who was complaining that the books suggested had no relevance for low income kids. Specifically, this person was complaining that low income African American's couldn't relate to the stories listed.

I was, I still am, astounded. Does this person read? I'm not attempting to make an ad hominium attack, but really, I thought Susan was a wet blanket, and Edmund a jerk, and I know next to nothing about the life of an English school child, and I've never been transported to another world. But I remember Aslan, and I had a picture in my mind of Cair Parvel, long before the movies.

However much I might wish for a house elf, there is no Hogwarts, I will never be sorted, and I have no idea where to get myself a wand. But I have read every book. I am a red head, but not an orphan, I've never been to PEI, and I didn't smash my slate over Billy Johnston's head, even when he made me kiss him behind the skating rink. But I understood Anne's anger, and I understood when she told Gilbert that "an iron" had entered her soul."

I have never fallen down a rabbit hole, and met a Queen who demanded people's heads, I have never raced an Arabian stallion in the dessert, nor have I ever owned a black horse. Obviously, I'm not a horse, but Black Beauty's story captivated me. I've owned dogs, but never lived in Saskatchewan, and I still smile at The Dog Who Wouldn't Be.

I'm not a nurse and never wanted to be one, but I loved Cherry Ames, and I still read Madeline L'Engle's books, both Sci-Fi and non, and every time I get the great chance to read them again, I find something new to chew on.

You see, children's books are about stories. There's not a common theme among them, but I loved them all. Every last one held my attention, even some 20 years later. For some of them, I can close my eyes and tell you where I was, how old I was, when I first read them.

And there is a deficit in stories. Even in the stories above. Yes, the story of the child in Harlem, surrounded by drugs and murder is not present. And it should be, in some form. I think understanding comes from listening to others' stories. But, even in all the books above, my story isn't present. You won't find a reflection of my childhood. A book doesn't have to be about your story to be enjoyable.

I have a newsflash for the commenter:

That isn't why we read. We don't read to hear our own story. We know our story. We read for other stories, to inspire, to delight, to teach, and truly, for a few hours of escape, into someone else's life.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have 3 books left in Alexander McCall Smith's Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, and then I think I may crack open a Nancy Drew.

I do, after all, still own every last one of them, including the cook book.

Vive Le Livre

Here's how it works:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read. (Or just put comments next to them)

3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE - mine are in red. I bolded the books I have read, that were, ahem, unremarkable!

4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)





1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - Stunning, I learned about black humour from this book!

6 The Bible - Yeah I've read all of it, including the really boring bits in Numbers.

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - I didn't love it, but it was ok. I never got into Heathcliff the way my classmates did.

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - On my list. Anything that gets the Christian Right that upset is probably worth a read.

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - Can I just say, I'm not a huge fan of Dickens. The stories are just, so, bleak!

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy - I read it years ago. Can't remember anything about it. I remember something about a dog?

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - Oh, no. I still have nightmares when I think about the essay I wrote about Silas Marner on the remedial influence of pure, natural human relations. Ugh.

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - I've read it. I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it needs a book group to go with it?

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -- I have read the whole thing. It got confusing. . .

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - On my list.

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - I don't know if I loved it, but it was powerful and profound.

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - A friend recommended it. I'm going to buy it one of these days.

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden - On my list.

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown - As a Christian, the theology was VERY suspect (and the church history was just plain wrong.) It was a great read, enjoyable, fast paced, but reading it for content would be like watching James Bond movies to see how MI-5 works.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - Oh yes! You lose your Canadian citizenship if you don't read this. And I love all of her books. Every last one.

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - read it, didn't love it.

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel - eh, it was ok. . .

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - on my list.

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon - Also on my list.

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Eh, it was ok. I didn't love it. (And for some reason I thought Isabelle Allende wrote it, but moving on)

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Love it! Reading it again, as we speak.

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding - Cause Celeb is also really good!

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie - On my list.

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville - I'll give you a hint. It's about a whale.

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker - I don't know if I loved it. . . .

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome - Fabulous! And "We didn't mean to go to sea" is even better. . . .

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray - It's on my bookshelf!

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker - One of the few movies based on a book that I have really liked. Who knew Oprah acted so well!

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry - I don't like him. Any of his stuff. Don't know why, but I don't like him.

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I've read some of them.

90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams - It's about bunnies. Way too many bunnies for me.

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - I think Hamlet's a whiny jerk. I really hated this play.

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo