Making it Up As I Go

I was just working on a post about the books I read in April, but I’m really not in the mood to write it. So instead, I give you the books waiting to be read. (Quite literally- they’re all here, in a big stack.)

Come Be My Light by Mother Teresa (I have to have this one finished by Thursday for book club!)

Keeping House by Margaret Kim Peterson (I’m about 60% done with this one, need to get it finished. It’s just SO good.)

My Heart’s at Home: Becoming the Intentional Mom Your Family Needs by Jill Savage

You Can’t Say You Can’t Play by Vivian Gussin Paley

Teaching Meditation to Children by David Fontana and Ingrid Slack

Growing Grateful Kids: Teaching Them to Appreciate an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Places by Susie Larson

Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness: A guide for anyone who teaches anything by Deborah Schoeberlein

The Compassionate life by Marc Ian Barasch

The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and more Compassionate by Susan K Greenland  ( Do we see a theme here?)

Changeless by  Gail Carriger

The Fitzgerald Ruse by Mark De Castrique

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Trinidad Noir edited by Lisa Allen- Agostini

Coco Chanel and Igor Stavinsky by Chris Greenhalgh

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

The Best of It by Kay Ryan

Goodness. That’s a bit insane. 6 of them are library books, so we’ll see if I get to them before it’s time to take them back.

What are you reading?

Before I start, can I just say that I really want to take a nap right now? Really badly? But I know that if I do, I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight. And I just wasted an hour puttering around on the interwebs, so I feel like I should do something of substance now. So, without further ado, the books I’ve read in the last 9 days.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson: I wrote about my pathological inability to remember anything about this book earlier, and I have to admit that I because of that mental block, I went into reading this book a little wary. (Was my mind trying to protect me from something? Possibly…) Honestly, I’m not positive how I feel about the book.   The beginning was a little slow going; I read the first 120 pages in two 1/2 hr sittings; but then it ramped up and I hit a binge and finished the rest (500 or so pages) in 3 hours. The characters were quite interesting,  and the mystery at the center of the plot  (there were at least 2 other mysteries going on as well) was compelling.

It’s the story of a disgraced journalist who is hired to investigate 30 year old disappearance of a Swedish businessman’s brother’s granddaughter. (And yes, all of the relationships in the book are that convoluted.) As the story progresses, a mysterious, tormented, brilliant hacker named Lisbeth Salander is pulled into the case, and together she and the journalist uncover all sorts of unsavory information about the history of the family.  Part way through it wanders into serial killer/thriller territory, and while I don’t know what I was expecting, it wasn’t that.

The original title of the book (the Swedish version) was Men Who Hate Women, and while I can see why they changed the title – who would buy that book? – it’s a pretty accurate one. The central theme of the book is violence and oppression perpetrated against women, and while there was some pretty disturbing violence, which I wish I hadn’t read, it wasn’t necessarily gratuitous. It also deals with injustices and abuses of the Swedish court system, which were enlightening, but pretty depressing.

The thing that carried me through to the end was the character of Salander, the girl of the title. I wanted to know more about her, who she was, what made her tick- I just wish there was a way to do that without the rest of the depressingness. Which probably isn’t possible, as it seems that many of her issues stem from those very issues.  I haven’t decided whether I’ll read the next book in the series… we’ll see.

The Wild Things by David Eggers: This is the novelization of the movie-ization of the children’s book by Maurice Sendack (written by the writer of the screenplay for the movie) .  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but oh my goodness did this book kill me. I’ve read many different interpretations of the film, but what stood out to me most here was Max as a symbol for mother. He finds himself on a strange island, suddenly in charge of creatures he doesn’t understand, trying to institute some sort of order for his own safety and theirs, trying to juggle the needs and whims of each while struggling to come to some sort of comprehension of who he’s dealing with, seeing pieces of himself and his own family in them – when he doesn’t even understand himself.  Seriously, so much of this resonated, it really was devastating in a really good way- if that’s possible.  There’s a song from the movie that we hear on the radio, and it almost always makes me cry because it captures something so primal- and that’s what this book does as well. It captures the primal, terrified, struggling part of motherhood, the part that will fight fist and nail- to the death- to defend its children, while being simultaneously certain that those same children will most probably consume it.

Steady Days: A Journey Toward Intentional, Professional Motherhood by Jamie C. Martin: This is a great little book (what, it’s short!) containing some great ideas about using time in an organized way as a mom. Less about scheduling laundry and such, more about how to work in scheduled play time to blow bubbles and things. I found it really insightful, and will be using a number of ideas from it.

The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith: I read this book a long while ago and really didn’t care for it, (you can read why here, starting in the 4th paragraph ), but it was the book club pick for the month, so I read it again. Going into with less expectation, and more interest in Africa, I appreciated it quite a bit more. It was still  light on character depth and development, and  I’m not going to rush out and pick up the rest in the series (Mr. McCall Smith and I have a complicated relationship), but it was better than last time, and that’s saying a lot.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: Prompted by a mention in #1 Ladies Detective Agency, I finally pulled this out and read it. (That description being false- I read it on the haunted Kindle, so I didn’t “pull it out” at all.)  I was supposed to read this a couple of times in college and didn’t, and therefore knew quite a bit about it without really having a sense of it. (This wasn’t one of the books I wrote a paper about without having read it — at least I don’t think it was. Although…. I remember writing a paper about colonization theory for my Gothic Imagination class that I did really poorly on, maybe it was on this book? Goodness, how I hated colonization theory. I wish I could take that class again now that I’m actually interested in it.)  BUT ANYWAY, I was surprised by this book, it wasn’t at all what I expected.  Interesting, compelling, but not half as dramatic as I’d been led to believe. It did have a crazy ramp-up part way through; I’d been reading it before bed and fell asleep, and when I picked it up the next day, all of the sudden I was in the midst of a gun battle and cannibals and fire, and had no idea how the plot had gotten there.  Overall, a good read.

The Humbling by Phillip Roth: This was a total impulse pick at the library, and I took it to the gym with me last night because it was short. It’s the story of an actor who has lost his skills (think writer’s block, but for an actor), had a mental breakdown, fallen for the 20 years younger lesbian daughter of old friends, lost her, contemplated suicide… it’s a concise, tightly written exploration of… something. I’m not quite sure what the ultimate point is; it explores the roles we play, courage, suicide, impersonation, identity, but I’m not sure what it ultimately says about any of it.

Now I’m reading by “Exterminate All the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide by Sven Lindqvist, a fascinating exploration of the role of genocide in Europe’s colonization of Africa and how it created the atmosphere in which Hitler raised up the Nazi party. VERY interesting so far.

What are you reading?

I’ve decided to embrace my inner slackerness when it comes to posting about the books I read, and change my intent of writing about them right after they’re read to writing about them at the end of the month. I’ll feel less existential angst this way. (Or something.)

I’ve read 4 books so far this  month, and should have another finished up by the end of the month. That puts me solidly on my way to my goal of 50 for the year.

The House of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam was a total impulse grab from the library. The blurb about the book included a haunting and a “decadent party in the 1920s”, and well, if I’m anything, I’m a sucker for the 1920s; decadent parties from then even more so.  The story was interesting, hinging on a house possessed of such evil that it makes anyone who visits insane (and ultimately suicidal)  from continual haunting after they leave the house. Only one man had successfully “gotten away” from the house, but he realizes he’s still embroiled in its evil after he’s called upon to help some college students who were lured to the house.  As the story progresses we learn how he was originally involved in the mystery of the house, and as he tries to help the girls, he discovers the truth of the house.  (It all started with said decadent party in the 1920s. )  Anyway, overall it was quite good, with some very well drawn characters. It’s only flaw for me was a rather sudden and surprising resolution that left me wanting far more information. (Let me be clear- there was enough information given, it wasn’t confusing or anything, I just wanted more.)

Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids by Kim John Payne with Lisa M. Ross is one of the best parenting books I’ve read in quite a while. Payne maintains that kids are being overwhelmed by too many toys, too many activities, too much information, too many choices, and that that by simplifying in all of those areas, they will do better and be happier. There’s seriously so much in this book that I can’t begin to summarize it all; all I will say is that I HIGHLY recommend it, and it’s one I’ll go back to over and over again.

Iorich by Steven Brust was everything I wanted and more. I adore Brust’s Vlad Taltos series, and this episode returned to his trademark wit.  There was a good section of 10 or so pages in a row where I just cracked up on every page. This installment sees Vlad trying to help his falsely (but kind of rightly, because she did what she was accused of, but that’s not why she was actually imprisoned) imprisoned friend while negotiating his way through the political machinations of the powers that be (who are also his, and the imprisioned’s, friends, but are bound by duty to do their jobs) and solving a conspiracy.  Getting to see Cawti and Krager again, as well as meeting Vlad Jr. was fantastic as well.

We’re reading Persuasion by Jane Austen for book club this month, and I started reading, and then it looked like I was going to miss book club, and I had so many other things to read that I stopped reading, and then book club got moved to my house and so I had to finish it frantically this last couple of days. I’m glad I did, it’s the first Austen I’ve actually made it all the way through ( I KNOW, I KNOW. Don’t you have some book you should have read? Actually I read an article about people who lie about having read books and why they do, and I’ll admit that I lie about having read Austen just to avoid the incredulous reactions.) and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I kept wanting to slap various characters, but I’m fairly certain that was the point, so it was ok. What was odd, though, was that I kept thinking throughout what a different book it would have been had it been written by Virginia Woolf or Evelyn Waugh. I think the thought came up because they’ve all written about similar subjects- a good person ignored, a group visiting the country – and my mind wandered. If Waugh had written it the story would have been similar but the absurdity more pronounced, if it had been Woolf there would have been a death and more inner turmoil and torment. Anyway, it was an interesting thing to think about as I read. But that shouldn’t be taken to mean that I wished it was written differently, it was wonderful as it was. And true to report, the love letter toward the end is paralyzingly lovely.

I’m in the middle of Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Wendy Watson Nelson, which is incredibly good and about the power of questions in our dealing with ourselves, others, and God. She has a 30 day challenge wherein you take a question to the scriptures every day for 30 days, which I’m excited to try. There are some great insights and thought provoking ideas in here.

I’m also in the middle of A Charlotte Mason Companion and Charlotte Mason Study Guide. I’ve got school on the brain.

I also have to get to Alice In Sunderland by Bryan Talbot, which I have from the library and will need to return soon. I’ve been meaning to read it for literally YEARS now, so I’m glad to get to it.

Anyway, that’s what I’m reading. What are you reading? Anything I should add to my list? Fill me in!

Well, in book review.

I’m happy, and somewhat relieved, to say that I achieved my goal of reading 50 books. I even went that extra mile and read 54.  (Three of which I discovered while doing all the links for this post- I need to do a better job of keeping up my list!)  It’s possible I would have gotten to 55 today, but the book I started didn’t suck me in. Boo.

I thought about doing a decade in review, but I didn’t start keeping track of what I was reading until 2003, so I’ll put that off until 2013.  Ha!

Some stats for this year:

I read 31 fiction and 23 non-fiction, which I was impressed by until I looked at last year’s numbers and saw that they were almost exactly the same.  And interestingly, looking back over the years (which I said I wasn’t going to do, but so what) I’ve averaged right around 22 non-fiction books a year, even if the fiction books have rocketed into the 90s.  It’s like I max out.

Only 2 books were rereads.

17 books came from the library

15 were bought in paperback or hardback

9 were bought on the Haunted Kindle

8 were free on the Haunted Kindle

5 were books I already owned, or was given as gifts

Most exceeded expectation: Listening below the noise: A Meditation on the practice of Silence – Anne D. LeClaire

Most failed expectation:  Resurrection Club – Christopher Wallace

Here’s the list of this year’s reads, with my favorites bolded. If you want to read my original review, just click on the title. (If the title and the author are linked separately, it’s because I wrote about the book 2 times. You know, should you want to read my multiple thoughts. And if there’s no link, it’s because I’d forgotten I’d read it until just now.)

Zoe’s Tale- John Scalzi

The Monsters of Templeton- Lauren Groff

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betsy Smith

Frankly My Dear, I’m Dead- Livia J. Washburn

I Love Dirt- Jennifer Ward

Jesus the Christ- James E. Talmage

Six word memoirs on Love and Heartbreak by writers famous and obscure- ed. Smith Magazine

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child- Marc Weissbluth

The clutter Diet -  Lorie Marrero

Mr Fooster traveling on a whim – Tom Corwin and Craig Frazier

Playful Parenting- Lawrence J. Cohen

Ms. Hempel Chronicles – Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum

Istanbul Noir

Why New Orleans Matters- Tom Piazza

AAP Guide to Toilet Training – Mark L Wolraich

Listening below the noise: A Meditation on the practice of Silence – Anne D. LeClaire

Black Butterfly- Mark Gatiss

Decline and Fall- Evelyn Waugh

Resurrection Club – Christopher Wallace

Still She Haunts Me- Katie Roiphe

You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down- Alice Walker

Pandora in the Congo- Albert Sanchez Pinol

The Manual of Detection- Jedediah Berry

The Voyage Out- Virginia Woolf

The Snows of Kilamanjaro- Ernest Hemingway

Book of Mormon

Lectures on Faith- Joseph Smith

Suffering is Optional- Cheri Huber

The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy by Pamela Dodd and Doug Sundheim

The Creative Family by Amanda Soule

The Salvage Studio Amy Duncan and all

In Praise of Slowness- Carl Honore

What the Scriptures teach us about raising a child – S. Michael Wilcox

My Life in France- Julia Child

Gourmet Rhapsody- Muriel Barbery

The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark- Muriel Spark

The Promise of Enough – Emily Freeman

Help! My apartment has a Kitchen Cookbook – Kevin Mills and Nancy Mills

Amish Peace – Suzanne Woods Fisher

To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee

100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum – Cathy Duffy

The White Garden – Stephanie Barron

Confessions of Arsene Lupin – Maruice LeBlanc

A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens

Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives- David Eagleman

The Housekeeper and the Professor- Yoko Ogawa

Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile- Gyles Brandreth

Before Midnight –Rex Stout

The Blonde Lady – Maurice LeBlanc

Death of a Doxy- Rex Stout

The Club of Queer Trades- GK Chesterton

The Importance of Being Ernest- Oscar Wilde

The Power of Less- Leo Babauta

Death on A Midsummer Night- Kerry Greenwood

And that’s it for this year.  I achieved (or got close to) most of my book related goals; there were a couple that fell completely by the wayside, but aren’t there always?

Anyway, for anyone still reading, what was your favorite book this year?

When I sat down to start this post, it was going to be a sum up of my reading for the year, but as I look at the list, I realize I’m a bit behind on my reviews. OK, behind to the point of bordering on ridiculous. How is it I have 18 books I haven’t written about? There’s a gross negligence occurring, and I wish I could blame it on someone other than myself. Can I blame society as a whole? I think I shall.

Blaming society aside, here’s the last 18 books I read.

The Promise of Enough by Emily Freeman: This was really good; about how to accept the abundance we’ve been promised in all facets of our lives, using the miracle the loaves and fishes as a jumping off point. One thought that has stuck with me is that the Lord expands what we already have to fill our needs, rather than giving us something completely new.

Help! My apartment has a Kitchen Cookbook by Kevin Mills and Nancy Mills : This is a cute cookbook, written in an engaging style. I’ll admit I haven’t actually gotten around to cooking anything from it, but don’t hold that against it.

Amish Peace by Suzanne Woods Fisher :One of the best books I read all year. Fisher, who is not Amish, details the Amish way of life in a way that is accessible and enjoyable, and leaves you wanting to incorporate some of their practices into daily life.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee: I hadn’t read this since high school, and was happy to have the opportunity to read it for book club. I’d been meaning to reread it, so it was good to have the push. What can I say? It’s brilliant. And I totally cried towards the end (I’d forgotten the whole last 1/4th of the book), and remembered crying at that same point when I’d read it before.

100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy: This book is utterly fantastic. Even if you’re not planning on homeschooling, the first section is all about solidifying what your ideas of what teaching and education are, and determining what kind of a learner your child is. That’s important information for anybody. But then it goes on to cross reference all of those factors through Duffy’s top 100 Curriculum picks, making it easy to see what will match your philosophy and your child’s learning style. And she has in depth reviews of all of those curriculum. Seriously, so good.

The White Garden by Stephanie Barron: I wrote about this before, so I’ll be lazy and just paste it here: I hit the point where I had to zoom through and finish it to find out what happened, totally sacrificing the boring (but I suppose important, I just didn’t care about the characters in question; ok, that’s not fair, I did, I just cared about a different element more) subplot to get through it. It’s working on the premise that Virginia Woolf didn’t commit suicide when everyone thought she did- that she ran to Vita Sackville-West instead. (This works because her body wasn’t found until weeks after she left her “suicide” notes.) I adore Virginia Woolf, and this was an interesting look at her, although I tend to see Virginia and her husband’s relationship in a different light, but I’m hardly a Woolf scholar, and prefer to imagine her having gotten some kind of solace from him. But anyway, it was really good. I recommend it.

Confessions of Arsene Lupin and The Blonde Lady by Maruice LeBlanc: Arsene Lupin is a character tailor made for me; witty, brilliant, devious, a master thief who also solves crimes… ah, I love it. The first of these titles is a collection of short stories, all very solid. The second appears to be short stories, but is really a novel in vignettes, as they all mix and intertwine and come together at the end. Very enjoyable.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: This was also a book club read, and surprisingly, it’s the first time I’ve ever read it. Well, perhaps not so surprising, seeing as Dickens and I had that falling out. But I highly enjoyed it, and it did much to reconcile Dickens and I. Not a complete reconciliation, mind you, but we’re back to being more than nodding acquaintances now.

Sum: 40 Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman: Oh my goodness this book was brilliant. Written by a neuroscientist (neurobiologist? I can’t remember), it contains 40 different visions of what happens after we die (fictional, not sciency). Some are beautiful, some are tragic, some are funny, all are very thought provoking. The writing is incredible, the content very stirring.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa: Lovely is the word that comes to mind when I think of this book. Just … lovely. It’s the story of a woman hired to keep house for a mathematics professor who, due to a car accident in 1975, has a memory of only 80 minutes. He can remember anything that happened before the accident, (so his knowledge of math is in tact), but anything after that is erased after 80 minutes. He copes with this by covering his suit with notes – the saddest, perhaps, being the note he sees first thing in the morning, reminding him about the condition of his memory. As the housekeeper gets to know him (he meets her anew every day), he teaches her about math. When he discovers that she has a son, he demands that the son be with his mother after school, and the professor and the son develop a profound bond. Throughout, math concepts are used to mirror, symbolize, and explain the relationship between the three of them, and while I’m no math person, I thought it was done very well. There’s no grand miracle, the professor isn’t cured, it’s just a lovely story of people reaching out to connect.

Oscar Wilde and the Dead Man’s Smile by Gyles Brandreth: This is the third in a series of murder mysteries based within the life of Oscar Wilde. Excellently written, and highly enjoyable.

Before Midnight, and Death of a Doxy by Rex Stout: I’ve been meaning to read some Nero Wolfe for a while now, and I’m glad I jumped in. These are solid, highly enjoyable mysteries with difficult, but guessable solutions. The characters are wonderful, and I’m going to need to read more.

The Club of Queer Trades by GK Chesterton: I actually thought this was a Nero Wolfe book when I started reading it (long story involving formatting on the haunted Kindle), but was delighted to find a completely unexpected series of short stories. They all revolve around strange employments people have created for themselves – like the Office of Distraction, where you can hire an expert to keep someone busy and out of your hair. I don’t want to say much more, because so much of the enjoyment comes from the revelation of what is actually happening in the stories. It has an off kilter feel that reminded me of  The Manual of Detection, and I hugely enjoyed it.

The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde: I admit that I read this because I was getting close to the end of the year deadline and it was short, but I’d not read it before, so I don’t feel bad about it. What can I say, Wilde was a genius, and every word of this is perfect. I’d love to be in a production of this, but it would be hard to deliver some of the lines without laughing.

The Power of Less by Leo Babauta: This was a good, if slight book. Written in a very casual style, it puts forth Babauta’s version of time and task management, which boils down to simplification. He has some useful ideas, and some pretty standard time management ideas, but overall it was worth the read.

Death on A Midsummer Night by Kerry Greenwood: I totally binged on this book yesterday, reading it in one fell swoop and staying up way too late.  It’s part of Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher series, which I love, and was everything I expected.

There you have it. Expect a roundup later tonight or tomorrow, who knows.

I found this on someone else’s blog, and knew Brandy would love it, so here goes:

1.If you don’t frequent your local library, why not?

We go to our local library all the time.

2. If you do visit the library, how often do you go?
At least every two weeks-ish. If I’m on top of it, once a week.

3. Do you have a favorite section that you always head to first, or do you just randomly peruse the shelves?
We hit the New Arrival shelves first, so I can grab books that look interesting, and then hit the kids section.

4. How many books are you allowed to check out at one time? Do you take advantage of this?
I have no idea what the library limit is. My personal limit is 3-4 for me, and 3 for Z. More than that and we lose them.

5. How long are you allowed to have the books checked out?
3 weeks, I think.

6. How many times are you allowed to renew your check-outs, if at all?
You can renew them twice, so you can have them a total of 9 weeks.

7. What do you love best about your particular library?
I love that I can renew my books online. Saves my life. That and the self check out kiosks. So awesome.

8. What is one thing you wish your library did differently?
Nothing really, it’s a great library.

9. Do you request your books via an online catalogue, or through the librarian at your branch?
Online. I don’t do it terribly often though.

10. Have you ever chosen a book on impulse (from the online catalogue OR the shelves) and had it turn out to be totally amazing? If so, what book was it, and why did you love it?

Most of my library picks are on impulse. Only rarely do I go in planning to pick up a particular book. But, books that fall in the impulse category recently: Pandora in the Congo, The Manual of Detection, The Salvage Studio…  Ok, I just checked, and out of the books that I checked out of the library this year and actually read (I don’t keep track of those I don’t read), only 2 were planned out ahead of time.

So if you’re so inclined, answer away! Yay libraries!

I’m reading Amish Peace: Simple Wisdom for a Complicated World by Suzanne Woods Fisher right now, and it is fantastic. I highly recommend it (well, based on the 60 or so pages I’ve read so far, but I can’t imagine it going south at this point). It’s very informative, and very inspiring.  I’ll come back and post some snippets when I have more time. Right now I’m off to get everyone ready for church.

What are you reading?

I haven’t written about the books I’ve read for, like, years now. Ok, months. But still. This always happens when I want to write a long review of a book I’ve read, and then I don’t, and then I read approximately 10 more books before I accept that I’m never going to write the long review and end up barely touching on the 10 books. Ah well, at least I know myself.

Pandora in the Congo by Albert Sanchez Pinol: This was the book that started the whole cycle. It was quite excellent, engrossing and vivid and exciting. It’s about a man who comes out of the Congo in the 1920’s telling a horrific tale of his adventures accompanying feuding brothers on a search deep into the jungle for diamonds, and who is arrested for the murders of those brothers. The main character is the man who is hired to write his story, in an attempt to bring the truth to light. It made me want to delve into books about Africa and colonial history, and even colonization literary theory, which I hated passionately in college, so that’s really saying something.
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry: This book was pure magic. Pulpy and slightly off kilter, it was a sheer joy to read. A man working for a secret agency (his job is to keep files for their best, most famous agent) ends up working as an agent, although he has no idea what he’s doing. It’s reminiscent of The Avengers but slightly more odd, and absolutely fantastic.

The Voyage Out (Oxford World’s Classics) by Virginia Woolf:  Virginia Woolf is one of my favorite writers, and none of her previous work prepared me for this one. Each character is so vivid and clear, and her depictions of love so raw and honest.  So, so good.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Scribner Classics) by Ernest Hemingway: Ol’ Papa Hemingway is another of my favorites, and I picked this collection of stories up because of the Africa connection. His writing blows me away, I love it.

Lectures on Faith by Joseph Smith: This is the first time I’ve read these, and they were quite interesting. I feel like I probably missed a lot, but I did get a lot out of them.

Suffering Is Optional: Three Keys to Freedom and Joy by Cheri Huber: Cheri Huber is a Zen teacher, and I really enjoy her books. This was kind of a workshop in book form, and I went through it doing one exercise a day and discussing it with Brandy via e-mail. It was good to slow down and do each of the exercises, and I feel like I learned a lot from it.

The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy by Pamela Dodd and Doug Sundheim:  The authors of this book took the 25 highest rated time management books from Amazon, read them, compiled all of the information, and put it together in this book. It was an interesting read, but to tell you the truth, none of it really sticks out now that I’m thinking about it, and I don’t know that I really changed any of my behavior due to it. Ah well.

The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Soule: This book is fantastic and inspiring. I almost (almost) wish I lived in Maine. But the life this woman leads is the kind of life I want for my family. Just, you know, in California.

The Salvage Studio: Sustainable Home Comforts to Organize, Entertain, and Inspire by Amy Duncan and a bunch of other people: This was written by the women who run The Selvage Studio, a studio that sells items made out of salvaged and recycled materials. They lay out their philosophy as well as presenting projects that the reader could complete. Their style isn’t exactly in line with mine, but their passion and creativity are completely inspiring. And the pictures in the book are just stunning.

In Praise of Slowness : Challenging the Cult of Speed (Plus) by Carl Honore: This book examines the “Slow Movement” – the attempt by a widening population to slow down and stop living such hectic, crazy busy lives. He describes different facets of the movement- slow eating, slow cities, slow… other things that I can’t recall at the moment. The one thing that did completely stick out to me was the importance of slowing down while driving and driving the speed limit- he presented the figures on how little time it actually saves you to speed, and the statistics on stopping distance and accident fatalities at higher speeds– since I’ve read it, I’v stayed right at the speed limit every time I drive. No more speeding for me.  Over all it was an interesting read, if a little heavy on the anecdotal evidence.

What the Scriptures Teach Us about Raising a Child by S. Michael Wilcox: This book is fantastic. Drawing on examples of parenting from the scriptures, Wilcox presents principles with clarity and insight. It’s a quick read, but has a lot of deep, ponderable ideas.

I’m currently in the middle of My Life in France by Julia Child, The Promise of Enough: Seven Principles of True Abundance by Emily Freeman, and Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery. (I’d link to that one, but the only copies they have on Amazon are a presale for an expensive hardcover. So I won’t link. But it’s really good.)  Then I have To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, and at least one other that I’m forgetting, in the wings.

What are you reading?

Books to catch up on:

I don’t remember if I wrote about Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, and I’m too lazy to check. I love Waugh, and this book really solidified for me why. Taking Brideshead Revisited out of the picture, which I think is a different kind of book entirely, his books capture an interesting aspect of life that I’ve never seen anyone quite capture before. His characters are often gliding through life, heading in the direction expected of them, when they’re set upon by very random, disruptive, and often damaging events. A wife reveals that she’s leaving for a previously unsuspected lover. A man is kicked out of university for public indecency after having his clothes stolen during a mugging by drunken revelers. A man loses the money he was using to prove he was solvent to his future fiance when, even though he wins a bet, he can’t find the man he made the bet with. Completely unexpected, horrible things, happening to perfectly good people. And he presents them as so commonplace, and with so much wit and good humor, that you end up laughing with his characters rather than feeling sorry for them. Because there really is a feeling throughout that life is good and that it’s a privilege to be alive in this strange world we live in. And I think it’s good to be reminded that going through this earthly experience doesn’t mean that things will always be easy, there will be bad and good, joy and pain, and sometimes, all of them all mixed in together.

This book is about the 2nd scenario above- a young man is mugged by drunken miscreants, and then is kicked out of university for the resultant public indecency of running back to his dorm naked. He loses his allowance, is forced to work as a teacher at a bizarre private school teaching lessons in subjects he knows nothing about, courts the mother of one of his students and is about to marry her when he is arrested for the business he helped her with out of the country, which just happened to be white slavery (which he was completely unaware of), goes to jail in her place, is broken out and his death is faked, and he ends up right where he started, at the university that kicked him out, pretending to be his own cousin. But that’s just the plot. Like every book I’ve read of Waugh’s, every word is absolutely perfectly placed. The characters are hilarious, the timing brilliant. I don’t have enough good things to say about it.

How I wish that were true about Resurrection Club by Christopher Wallace. I picked it up at the library because the back looked interesting, and I wasn’t paying attention and thought it was by Daniel Wallace, who wrote Big Fish. BIG difference. It wasn’t until 5/6ths of the way through the book that I realized that, and the main reason I kept reading that far was because I figured that with the Big Fish guy writing it, there had to be a point to it all. The premise is promising enough- a guy builds a mechanism that holds a heart, a brain, and wants the third chamber to hold a soul. And people are possibly faking their own deaths. But after that it just goes off the rails. There’s a story in present time Edinburgh about a strange exhibition promising to feature a resurrection, and three or four intertwining stories– and because of those you get sucked in and want to find out what in the world is going on, but it never quite comes together. The end kind of ties back into the beginning, but only kind of- Wallace never actually establishes that the mechanism actually does what the characters are claiming it does, and the whole thing just kind of jumbles around. By the time I got to the end I just wanted there to be a point- it didn’t have to be a good one, any point would do- but there really wasn’t one. Which was quite frustrating, because it wasn’t even an enjoyable read for me. It was decent as horror books go, but I like my horror a little less gratuitous.

Still She Haunts Me by Katie Roiphe also had a promising premise, but I ended up just skimming through it to find out the end. It’s about Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and his relationship with Alice Liddell, the child for and about whom he wrote Alice in Wonderland. He and her family had a dramatic falling out, and this book covers the time leading up to that and the theoretical cause of it. It was written well enough, I just wasn’t in the mood for the wordiness. And honestly I just wanted to know what tack she was taking, and I pretty much guessed it accurately- suspected sexuality being at the core. That being known, I didn’t really care enough to go back and read the whole thing.

I’m pages away from finishing You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down by Alice Walker. It’s a collection of short stories, some of which are stunningly insightful. And not in that it’s stunning that Alice Walker is insightful, because there’s not a question of that, but rather the insights themselves stunned me. Two in particular, one about the effects of porn and the other about rape and its effect on people’s perceptions of interracial relationships, were especially eye opening. The first because it was expressed in a way I hadn’t thought of before, and the second because it pulled on Walker’s history with the early Civil Rights movement, and explained how that history shaped her thoughts on interracial relationships, and thus, how events of that time period would have shaped everyone’s perspective. Luckily I have grown up in a different world (at least I hope so- I hope I’m not just that naive), and so this context really helped explain some ideas that previously made no sense to me. Anyway, this was an excellent book, not that that came as any surprise to me.

I’m also almost done with Black Mischief, also by Evelyn Waugh- again, wickedly funny and, in comparison to some of his others, fairly cynical. I’ll write more when I finish it.

And… I’m also reading The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf, which I’ve been reading for months now. It’s lovely and sweeping and I’d finish it far faster if I wasn’t reading it on my phone.

So I’m at 20 for the year so far, I should be at 24, so I’m not too far behind.

What are you reading? What do you think I should be reading?

A quick review of the books I’ve finished lately:

Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza: This was written in the months following Katrina, in a response to those people who questioned whether rebuilding New Orleans was worth it. The first half of the book is an ode to the culture of New Orleans, the music, the people, the parades, the atmosphere- everything. Piazza does a fantastic job of capturing the elusive magic of the city, as well as the complexity of the people. The second half details his experience going back into the ravaged city and the horrible things he witnessed- not just the damage and loss of life, but also the really poor choices made by the people in charge of making decisions for the city. A heartbreaking, but really good book.

AAP Guide to Toilet Training by Mark L Wolraich: This was probably one of the most ineffectual books I’ve read. The front cover boasts “Step by Step Instructions”, but the section on actually potty training your child is maddeningly vague. It would be like if I wrote a book claiming to teach you to dance, then the section that was supposed to teach you to dance said, “There are many different forms of dance. Pick the one that suits you best and start dancing!” and that was it. Seriously, I thought I’d missed a chapter or two. Ah well.

Listening below the noise: A Meditation on the practice of Silence by Anne D. LeClaire : This book is amazing. It’s a memoir of LeClaire’s experience with practicing silence- she is completely silent on the first and third Mondays of every month. She details beautifully her experience and some of the lessons she learned from her silence. It was really inspiring and lovely.

Black Butterfly: A Lucifer Box Novel by Mark Gatiss : To my delight, I found out that this book existed last night and immediately bought it on my haunted Kindle (thanks forever for that phrase, Brandy, it makes me laugh) and had it in a matter of moments. I LOVE my Kindle for that. And for many other reasons. I was too tired to start reading last night, so when Tiny woke me up ridiculously early this morning, I started reading while she played on the floor. And finished it before it was time for her to go down for her nap. Truly a tasty, engaging little literary snack. I love Gatiss’ style- it’s so quick and sly and funny; and while it’s no where near deep and philosophical, it’s charming in a old school pulp novel way.

That’s it for now, bringing my total to 16.
What are you reading?