The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

After a much-longer delay than I had hoped for I am finally reading Philip Roth's 2004 novel, a fictional memoir of his imagined childhood as Jew during Charles Lindbergh's presidency, covering roughly the years 1940-1942. I am currently about one hundred pages in, and it is a very compelling narrative so far, richly textured with observational detail, making me eager to find out what turn the story will take next.

I have never read anything by Roth before and I have the impression that this work is somewhat atypical of his writing, not just in terms of subject but in style as well. But I would be inclined to try more Roth in the future if this book continues to be as good as its first three chapters have promised.

Don't love LE

I don't love Louise Erdrich. To say "I love Louise Erdrich" would be a profoundly flippant statement dishonoring the deep respect I have for her writing. Bone satisfied may be more accurate. I have just finished Four Souls and Painted Drum.
Four Souls was a fleshing out of Fleur Pillager from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse but the sentence that knocked my breath from me with it's power and truth was this [Nanapush speaking of Fleur]:

She should have known that it is wrong to bear a child for any other reason but to surrender your body to life.

Painted Drum took me by surprise because the first character voice we hear was more like a modern novel seemingly devoid of intuition and mystery. The painted drum draws us back to the reservation and the initial character comes back unable to ignore or hide the full dimensions of her life, history, love.

Sprinkle, really?

I've started reading mysteries again. I spent most of this pregnancy rereading Laura Ingalls Wilder, L.M. Montgomery and introducing myself to Kingsolver, Erdrich, and various pregnancy/parenting topics. But this last month I have once again been craving the comfort of a good mystery. I don't like to be bothered with romance or too much suspense, I just love watching/reading about other people puzzling things out. I have recently broken away from my usual Laurie R. King and Ellis Peters and begun looking for Patricia Sprinkle. Not her Maclaren series, which is too light for me, but her new genealogy series. As my husband says nothing like a bit of history to give the illusion of depth. And while I enjoy some pulp to quiet the neurotic insomniac part of my mind I don't want to feel like I'm actually numbing my brain. So far Death on the Family Tree and Sins of the Fathers have been striking the balance for me.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

The other day I was flipping through a notebook from college, seeing how many pages I had used up taking notes (not very many). But then I got to reading what notes there were, and inspired by what I read (yeah, I know: by my own class notes) I pulled this book off the shelf and read it over again.

I have read all three of Krakauer's full length books, and this is, without qualification, my favourite. The journey of Chris McCandless fascinated me from the moment I read the book's cover, and he has never entirely left my thoughts since.

For those of you who have not read the book, you should. At the risk of courting a charge of pretension (not that it would be a first) I would say that Into the Wild is an important book. Certainly it was important for me when I first read it, and it held up very well through a second reading.

The book opens with the discovery of a young man's body by moose hunters in Alaska. Krakauer, initially commissioned by Outside magazine and then driven further by his own fascination with the story, traces the journey of this Chris McCandless from his privileged life in suburban Virginia to his lonely death in the Alaskan bush, with as much detail as he can discover of the in-between. It is not a journey you will easily forget.

In the years since I first read it, this book has continued to be active in my mind, and the questions it raised are still there as I search for the answers in my own soul.

Traci DePree

Well I've done it. I've read not one, but two Christian novels by Traci DePree — a can of peas and dandelions in a jelly jar. If I came upon a third I'd probably read that too. While the writing started out immature, by the second book of the Lake Emily series she had found her voice and rhythm. It was not saccharine like a Chicken Soup story and the deus ex machina was only slightly convenient. The vignettes and plot lines are wholly plausible. While her multiple characters seem to be fixated on avoiding "self-pity" the lack of sex scenes is refreshing and the awkward prayers endearing. I cried healthy cries (a lot), laughed a bit, smiled with comfort and was inspired to tackle the dishes. There's my confession: I read a Christian novel and I liked it.

The Hamlet by William Faulkner

I just finished my first Faulkner novel The Hamlet. I just didn't enjoy it. Between his use of subtlety, euphemism and symbolism I never felt I knew exactly what was going on. I felt like this fluid writing was describing a panorama of culture, scene and plot. But I was looking through a cardboard tube and try as I might could not get the whole picture. Now I am comfortable with the surreal and postmodern, Shakespeare and Austen but I cannot fathom the point Faulkner was trying to make with this book. I'm sure if it were explained to me I would have enjoyed it more.

The Barn at the End of the World by Mary Rose O'Reilly

I truly sank in and savored this book. It explored the author's experience (and my pet interest) of practicing Buddhism as a way to practice Christianity in the barn, monastery or wherever you happen to be. It helped me to quiet my "what next?" brainstorming and listen. It was most satisfying to read of a spiritual journey where the author is not in the end docile. O'Reilly is as feisty and testy when she ends the book as when you meet her, and yet genuine spiritual growth is evident. Something in my questing soul was answered when I read this book.

The Zahir by Paulo Coelho

I have long wanted to read Paulo Coelho and I was not disappointed. At times I felt I was reading a book of magical realism like Nick Bantock. In the end it is a book about the nature of love and the stories we tell to obscure its true meaning. It is written conversationally with the gloss of popular culture and the mists of mysticism. I throughly enjoyed it and will now have to add Kazakhstan to my travel wish list.

Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

I picked up the book hoping for a feminine version of The Da Vinci Code and got much more. Immediately it was apparent this was a more intelligent book with a different, but no less mysterious/mystical, subject matter. Mosse hovered between thriller and literature. There were the thriller plot devices but woven in with real skill and thought to the consequences. Unlike The Da Vinci Code I was not disgusted with the ending, but found I had spent my time pleasantly and picked up something new about the langue d'oc.

Life with Mother by Clarence Day

Life with Mother does not remind me of my grandmother, but I enjoyed it none the less. The essays are similar to those in Life with Father, some making me laugh out loud, however they tend to be more descriptive, longer, and less focused. This unedited feel can be attributed to the fact that some were published posthumously.

The House on the Point, by Benjamin Hoff

Benjamin Hoff, who wrote The Tao of Pooh (which I liked) and The Te of Piglet (which I did not), has set out to rewrite his beloved Hardy Boys. I must begin by saying I have never read a Hardy Boys novel, only a couple of Nancy Drews, so perhaps this book is not meant for me anyway. Actually I enjoyed the story; not having read the original it was based on, The House on the Cliff, I think the reworking worked. However some of the lingo from the 40's and 50's is a bit unnatural to read and clusters around certain scenes rather than organically sprinkled throughout. His lists of items included in various kits are a bit tedious. Another minor annoyance is his tendency toward being pedantic and bemoaning the ills of an unenlightened society (which is why I did not like The Te of Piglet). He simply cannot resist trying to teach us a lesson and includes a 25 page essay on "The Art of Seeing" which I skipped because my @** was twitching. These annoyances oddly enough did not actually detract from the story. They simply highlighted Hoff's inexperience with period fiction.

Life With Father by Clarence Day

In preparing for our latest storytime (for grownups) I reread Life with Father by Clarence Day. It must be read as a product of it's day, late Victorian New York, but even so I had to do very little in-my-head editing. The stories were written by the son for the periodical The New Yorker, appearing in the 1930's. As a child visiting my maternal grandparents I would watch the movie of the same title. It was a favorite there because the 'Father' was so like my own grandfather. Almost all of the stories make me smile, several make me chuckle, and my favorites make me laugh out loud and want to read it again.

Whole Child, Whole Parent by Polly Berrien Berends

This is one of those rare books I will buy whenever I see it (it's out of print) because I know I will want to give it to everyone I know. Even though I have yet to finish it I foresee reading it on a regular basis, even semi-annually. It is wise, non-judging, and true true true.

The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr

This is a good story and an okay pastiche. There is a mildly worrying spiritualism about Holmes that is satisfactorily resolved. Watson is pleasantly sharper on the uptake (the possible result of tea brewed in one of Holmes' beakers?). Mycroft has most troublingly lost his aura of omnipotence; despite mentions of his genius, he is not much quicker than Watson and certainly no match for his brother. However the most telling point besides language nuances is the author's modern willingness to detail violence and perversity in Watson's voice. If you don't expect Doyle you'll enjoy the read.

Cod: Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky

What a fine little book. I have been sitting on this for something like three years, and I finally dusted it off. I am not typically intrigued by matters of economic history, but this was just fascinating. Who knew a fish could be so important to the unfolding of a thousand years of world events? Although having grown up with a fifteen-foot statue of a cod at the entrance to my hometown, I might have guessed that something bigger than lutefisk was at stake. Highly recommended (the book, not the lutefisk, although I do enjoy a small bowl at Christmas).

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson

I don't usually go for paranormal-heavy conspiracy theory stuff, but I couldn't pass this one up. Imagine an ultra-secret Black Ops program to train American soldiers to walk through walls, achieve invisibility, and even have the power to kill a goat just by staring at it. According to Ronson's research, just such a program existed in the late 1970's, and his interviews with the various people involved indicate a renewed interest in such bizarre schemes as part of the War on Terror. An absolutely fascinating little book. I couldn't put it down for a minute, which is something that I haven't been able to say for a long, long time.