tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53922907046818730702024-02-06T20:13:06.561-06:00All the parts of my lifeI am trying to hold in one steady glance <br>
all the parts of my life. <br>
-- Adrienne Rich, "Toward the Solstice" <br>
<br>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-42812310245048988562015-12-16T21:15:00.000-06:002015-12-16T21:15:13.758-06:00Project for holiday downtime: maybe move this blog to WordPress?Since I started a (very very small) publishing company a few months ago, published my book of poetry, and have been working on writing novels (two in progress, zero finished so far), and have been learning more about self-publishing, I really need to reinvigorate this blog. I cleaned up a few things a couple months ago, but there's still a lot to do, and I'm thinking it's about time I switched from Blogger to WordPress. The guys who do <a href="https://sterlingandstone.net/smarter-artist/publishing-2/spp/" target="_blank">The Self-Publishing Podcast</a> (which I discovered when I found their book, Write. Publish. Repeat, at the library) have talked a bit about "digital sharecropping," I think they called it, and the importance of having your own space on the internet. As long as I'm on Blogger, I'm basically at the mercy of Google. Like millions of other people, I love many things about Google, but the idea of controlling my own space is very appealing. My business, and my writing career, is still in its fledgling state, and will be for some months to come (but not years -- please, Lord, let it be months and not years!), but I want it to grow and succeed. Getting a "real" web host, making the blog a bit more "professional," and posting more often -- even if it's only short updates like this one -- are reasonable steps I can take, and <i>should</i> take, toward gradually growing my business.<div>
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All that said, if you try to visit this blog again in the next few weeks and it's messed up or temporarily missing, I'm probably trying to move it to a new host and a new template and running into technical difficulties ... because that's usually what I do. Wish me luck.</div>
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© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-76123060448343294232015-05-22T21:49:00.001-05:002015-05-22T21:49:53.928-05:00My review of The Happiest People in the World by Brock Clarke<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">For the record: I received this book (an actual hardcover book!) for review from <a href="http://algonquin.com/" target="_blank">Algonquin Books</a>, through <a href="http://www.librarything.com/" target="_blank">LibraryThing</a>’s Early Reviewers program. This does not affect the content of my review, but since I truly <b>did</b> love the book, I’m incredibly thankful to have a “real” copy and not just an ARC.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I’ve delayed this review so long, I hardly know where to begin. So, I will begin at the beginning. The novel contains eight parts, with a total of 67 chapters. The lengths of the parts are wildly uneven: Part one contains chapter 1, which is only four pages long. It doesn’t quite function as a prologue, exactly, but sort of as a smoky glimpse of things to come. I use the word “smoky” to mean the scene is literally smoky. The first page of the book contains the sentence, “The smoke was so thick the moose head was barely able to see the people it was intended to spy on.” From the book’s jacket, the reader learns that the novel will include a cartoonist from Denmark -- home of “the happiest people in the world” (except for that guy Hamlet, who I seem to recall was super <b>unhappy</b>) -- and some CIA agents, and a high school principal in a small town in upstate New York, plus the principal’s wife. We know there are CIA agents, so the mention of spying right on the first page isn’t wholly unexpected.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Part two begins with chapter 2, in which we meet the aforementioned Danish cartoonist. The timing of my reading of this book was very strange. I got the book in October, but didn’t actually read it until early January. Only a few days after the attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris, I found myself reading about a similar kind of situation in a fictitious newspaper in Denmark. I had waited too long to start reading the book, but ended up reading it almost simultaneously with current real-world events. In the novel, the reason the cartoonist draws a controversial cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad is quite mundane: his boss tells him to draw one. The reason the boss tells him to draw the cartoon is really a slap in the face for anyone who believes in freedom of expression: the editor hates his job, but the newspaper had been “owned and run by his family for almost two centuries. Quitting the paper would be like quitting his family” (p. 14). He realizes that if the paper prints a controversial cartoon, the backlash will require him to close up shop, and he’ll no longer be stuck in this job that he hates. (Selfish bastard.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The newspaper offices are attacked, and the cartoonist’s house is burned down. The cartoonist is declared dead, but in reality, he’s alive and being protected by the CIA. After a couple few years of being shuttled here and there, the Danish cartoonist is given a new identity, Henry Larsen of Sweden. His CIA handler, a woman nicknamed Locs, travels with him to the US, then puts him on a bus to a little town in upstate New York called Broomeville. We learn that Locs used to live in Broomeville, and had an affair with the junior-senior high school principal, Matty. Although he had loved Locs, he’d broken it off with her and remained with his wife, Ellen, and their son, Kurt. Before bringing Henry to America, Locs got in contact with Matty, told him that she’d joined the CIA after their affair ended, and asked him if he had a job available for the man under her protection. Matty agrees to hire Henry Larsen as the school’s guidance counselor.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The novel’s plot is fairly complicated, and there are a number of quirky characters, but I felt most of the central characters were fleshed out and interesting. Although the details of the plot were far-fetched and improbable, the characters’ actions and emotions rang true. Locs still misses Matty, still loves him, although their affair ended seven years before. Ellen is still hurt by Matty’s betrayal, and when she hears someone else refer to him as “Matthew,” the name only Locs called him, she’s instantly suspicious. Their son Kurt, now a teenager, is intrigued by Henry, and curious about his sudden appearance in Broomeville, but also tells him impulsively when they first meet, “‘I’m definitely going to be needing your guidance counseling’” (p.77).</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I found Brock Clarke’s writing to be propulsive. The book I read right before this one was a novella -- I think it was less than 100 pages -- and it took me about ten days to finish it. Then I started <i>The Happiest People in the World</i>, and I <b>tore</b> through it in three days. I thought the premise was interesting, and the first couple of chapters pulled me in quickly. In chapter 5, when Locs calls Matty to tell him she’s with the CIA and ask if he can give Henry a job, this paragraph appears:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“Fair enough,” Matty said, and immediately he wished he hadn’t. She had once accused him of saying that -- “fair enough” -- way too often and in response to things that weren’t fair enough at all, and then they’d gotten into a fight about it, his gist being, did she have to be such a bitch, and her gist being, she wouldn’t have to be such a bitch if he didn’t say “fair enough” all the time. (pp. 26-27)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I read that, laughed out loud, then walked to the other room and read the paragraph to my husband. From that point, I was <b>all in</b> on this novel. I liked the main characters, the secondary characters were pretty entertaining, the plot kept me guessing, but the thing I enjoyed most about the book was that tone, that voice, which could be funny, or serious, or sometimes both at the same time. The all-over-the-place feeling reminded me of my response to the novel <i><a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2012/04/fraction-of-whole-so-funny.html" target="_blank">A Fraction of the Whole</a></i> by Steve Toltz, which I read in 2011 and love love loved; this is the first time another novel reminded me of Toltz's book. (That title links to my post about the book, in case wacky happenings are your thing.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Here’s an extreme example, in which Ellen is driving Henry to the school in the snow, a ride that takes approximately one minute. If you like this, then you should definitely give this book a try.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In this way, Henry learned several things.That once Americans were out of the cold and in their trucks, they did not like to get back out into the cold, even if it meant making the inside of their trucks as cold as the outside; that American weathermen liked to refer to snow as “the white stuff”; that American sports talk radio announcers liked to say about something, “There’s no doubt about it,” before then expressing their many doubts about it; that American political commentators liked to preface their comments by saying, “No offense,” before then saying something offensive (the political commentator on the radio had said to whomever he was talking to, “No offense, but you have to be the stupidest human being on the planet”); that Americans were very impatient people with very short attention spans; that Americans believed as long as they were inside their trucks they were invisible, and that as long as they smoked cigarettes inside their trucks they would not then smell like cigarettes once they exited their trucks, and that in general Americans thought their trucks were magic; that while Europeans tended to think of Americans as people who liked to drive incredibly long distances in their pickup trucks, in fact Americans liked to drive incredibly short distances in their pickup trucks as well. These were the lessons Henry learned about Americans during his first minute in Ellen’s truck, and not once was he forced to reconsider them during all his days in Broomeville. (p. 92)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">These are over-generalizations, of course, but there’s some amount of truth to them, in that everything in the paragraph sounds familiar to me. I’ve never driven a pickup truck, but I really do like my car, and most Americans seem to be quite fond of their motor vehicles. Meteorologists really do use the term “the white stuff” in areas of the country that get snowfall. Talk radio … well, no offense, but I think Clarke’s got the gist of it. If you can’t stand this paragraph, the book is probably not for you, although as I said, this is one of the more extreme examples. But, if you read it and thought, “Yes, I want more!” then you’ve come to the right place.</span></div>
<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I loved taking the crazy journeys Clarke maps out in this novel. I was interested in his previous novel because of its unusual title, <i>An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England</i>, but hadn’t actually read it. Now that I’ve read <i>The Happiest People</i> twice, I decided to purchase that earlier book for my ereader. I don’t think I’ll be disappointed.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-72030000014460923872015-01-04T18:55:00.000-06:002015-01-04T18:55:05.873-06:00My favorite books of 2014This was a slightly disappointing reading year, in that I only read about 35 books. Part of this is because I participated in <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a> (National Novel Writing Month) in November and didn't read much of anything as I tried to focus on writing. I also didn't listen to as many audiobooks this year as I usually do, choosing more often to listen to podcasts. Still, I did read some very good stuff, and wanted to do a top ten list to make sure those books I enjoyed but didn't review would get a little end-of-year attention.<br />
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1. <i>Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?</i><br />
This memoir by Roz Chast is the first graphic memoir/novel/anything that I've ever read. I bought the brand-new hardcover after hearing about it on the <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/the_audio_book_club/2014/08/book_club_discussion_on_roz_chast_s_can_t_we_talk_about_something_more_pleasant.html" target="_blank">Slate Audio Book Club podcast</a>. Listening to Dan Kois and Hanna Rosin reading a section in the voices of Roz's parents, I was overcome with laughter, and also, having grown up in my own hoarders-like situation, I knew there would be parts I could relate to. This book is hysterically funny, at times heartbreaking, completely honest, and full of awesome. <b>Everyone</b> should read it.<br />
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2. <i>Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky</i><br />
In a year when I didn't blog as much as I would have liked, and didn't review as many books as I'd hoped to (in both cases, I realize that's the same story as EVERY year, but I digress), I did <a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2014/10/go-read-this-book-ancient-oceans-of.html" target="_blank">post a review</a> of this amazing debut novel by David Connerley Nahm. I skimmed through several best-of-the-year roundups online, and didn't see this novel on any of them. <b>WHY DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS AGAIN?? GO FIND THIS BOOK AND READ IT!!</b><br />
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3. <i>Station Eleven</i><br />
This is the fourth book by Emily St. John Mandel, and her breakout. I was lucky to be one of the first to get it from my local library, and I read the whole thing in one day, during the October Read-a-thon. It's post-apocalyptic and literary, with both smarts and heart, and unlike the Nahm book, it actually DID make many best-of-the-year lists, deservedly so. Count me on the bandwagon.<br />
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4. <i>Can't and Won't</i><br />
Lydia Davis has become a favorite of mine, and this one, her latest collection of stories (some short, and some short-short), was a solid effort. A handful of the pieces didn't do it for me, but overall, this book was a joy. Like <i>Ancient Oceans</i>, this is one I initially got from the library, and then bought my own copy because I liked it so much. I now have most of Davis's books, and really I should just plan to buy the new ones as they come out because I can't imagine not liking them.<br />
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5. <i>The Days of Abandonment</i><br />
This was the first book I read by elusive Italian author Elena Ferrante. I bought it at the library book sale a few years ago, and finally read it because of the <a href="http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/?s=tag&t=world-cup-of-literature" target="_blank">World Cup of Literature</a> event hosted by <a href="http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/" target="_blank">Three Percent</a>. It was blisteringly angry, and also maybe a little crazy. I bought into it, and I loved it. I bought another Ferrante book soon after finishing this one, so definitely plan to read more of her.<br />
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6. <i>Bluets</i><br />
Like the Ferrante novel, this book by Maggie Nelson sat on my bedside table for a LOOONG TIIIIME, while I hoped to write a review or at least post some of the passages I liked best. (As usual, I didn't get to it.) It's hard to say whether this book is prose, or prose poetry, or something else I don't have a name for. It consists of over 100 passages and short paragraphs, all numbered, all growing from thoughts about the color blue -- thus the title. This book isn't for everyone: there are F-bombs in it, and sexually graphic moments, and you might wonder if Nelson has them in there merely to shock the reader or to make some point that's not entirely clear. But good heavens, a lot of the sections in the book are SO BEAUTIFUL, so finely-crafted and moving, I don't even care about the comparatively small number that mention screwing and sodomy and what-have-you. I'd really like to read more by Nelson, and look forward to hearing what she'll do next.<br />
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7. <i>My Life in Middlemarch</i><br />
This book by Rebecca Mead is part memoir, part biography of George Eliot, and part literary criticism/appreciation of Eliot's novel <i>Middlemarch</i>. As a huge fan of <i>Middlemarch</i>, I was eager to read this book, and it didn't disappoint. It brought me to tears several times. My only problem with it is that it's the kind of book I would have wanted to write, and Mead has already written it, dammit. Since she's British, and read <i>Middlemarch</i> far earlier in life than I did, she clearly had an advantage over me anyway, so I forgive her, and truly appreciate her work. Moreover, she brought attention to <i>Middlemarch</i>, and that makes me very happy.<br />
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8. <i>Let's Pretend This Never Happened</i><br />
Confession: I listened to Jenny Lawson's "mostly true memoir" on audio, very early in 2014, and haven't revisited it. But when I looked at the list of books I read during the year, and saw this title, all I could think of was how incredibly funny it was -- I mean laughed-till-I-cried, might-need-my-inhaler, almost-wetting-my-pants, loud-guffaws-in-public kind of funny. Anything that makes me laugh that hard is always worth my time. If you like funny books and you don't mind one that includes at least 85 occurrences of the word "vagina," give this one a shot.<br />
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9. <i>Home Leave</i><br />
I got an ARC of Brittani Sonnenberg's debut novel from <a href="http://www.librarything.com/" target="_blank">LibraryThing</a>, so I've <a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2014/10/book-review-home-leave-by-brittani.html" target="_blank">already written a review of it</a>, and don't need to say much more. I really admired all the different perspectives, and the variety of styles, that Sonnenberg used to tell this story. That willingness to experiment helps her to stand out from the crowd.<br />
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10. <i>Bury Me in My Jersey</i><br />
This one is a memoir by Tom McAllister, a writer who also co-hosts my favorite podcast, <a href="http://bookfightpod.com/" target="_blank">Book Fight!</a> Because I love the podcast, I was probably predisposed to enjoy the book. Moreover, since it's a memoir, and I know Tom's voice from the podcast, I could "hear" him narrating as I read it. A big part of the book is about Tom's adolescence and young adulthood in and around Philadelphia, and specifically his family's devotion to the Philadelphia Eagles football team. Tom's experiences in Eagles fandom, and the loss of his father to cancer when Tom was only 20, are woven together into a mosaic of love for both family and a wider community (in this case, both fellow Eagles fans and Philly itself), and of grief at losing his dad when he still badly needed his dad's guidance and encouragement. I've learned a decent amount about basketball and baseball from my husband and sons, but I still know almost nothing about football, and I'm happy to remain in ignorance. And yet, I enjoyed this book very much. It doesn't matter if you have an interest in football, or in any kind of "fandom," or if you've lost a loved one too soon, or like to read about father-son relationships, or you've considered writing as your vocation but don't see how you could ever actually do it -- there is something in McAllister's book for all of these readers. And if you're like me, and you've listened to enough episodes of the Book Fight! podcast that you can tell which voice is Tom's and which is Mike's, then you should definitely read Tom's book. Like, stop reading this now and go find a copy!<br />
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Cheers to discovering some excellent books in 2014, and let's hope 2015 is full of fantastic reading!<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-69148735756493897162014-11-04T18:38:00.000-06:002014-11-04T18:38:15.624-06:00Top Ten Tuesday: Top ten books I want to reread<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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(Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by <a href="http://www.brokeandbookish.com/" target="_blank">The Broke and the Bookish</a>.)<br />
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Most of my November writing will be for <a href="http://www.nanowrimo.org/" target="_blank">NaNoWriMo</a>, but I saw this topic today and had to join in. Links are to my reviews or to "appreciation" posts about the books mentioned.<br />
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<i>The Stand</i> -- Stephen King<br />
I read this when I was about 19 or 20 years old, and I remember loving it. I also loved the mini-series that aired a few years later. While I re-watched the mini-series a couple of times, I don’t think I’ve ever reread the book. It’s been over 20 years, and I still have it, so I really should find the time to revisit it.<br />
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<i>The Madness of a Seduced Woman</i> -- Susan Fromberg Schaeffer<br />
A co-worker lent me a copy of this book was I was about 17. Not only did I love it, but Schaeffer became one of my favorite novelists. I’ve read her book <i>The Injured Party</i> at least four times, but I’ve never reread this one. Since it was the first one I read by her -- and yes, I have my own copy now -- I’d love to read it again.<br />
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<a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2011/05/handbook-for-lightning-strike-survivors.html" target="_blank"><i>The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors</i></a> -- Michele Young-Stone<br />
Another one I loved to pieces. I recently got a digital ARC of Michele Young-Stone’s next novel, and it makes me want to experience <i>The Handbook</i> all over again.<br />
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<i>Middlemarch</i> -- George Eliot<br />
Because I’ve only listened to the audiobook three times, and that’s not nearly enough!<br />
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<a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2010/08/few-thoughts-on-book-love-and-passage.html" target="_blank"><i>The Passage</i></a> -- Justin Cronin<br />
I bought and read this when it first came out, and then I reread it two years ago before reading the second book in the trilogy, <i>The Twelve</i>. I’m planning to read <b>BOTH</b> of them again when we get close to the release date for the third book -- which is sometime in 2015, but not soon enough for me!<br />
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<i>Tinkers</i> -- Paul Harding<br />
I read this three or four years ago. I thought the writing was beautiful, but I didn’t truly appreciate it. When I read <a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2014/10/go-read-this-book-ancient-oceans-of.html" target="_blank"><i>Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky</i></a> last month, it reminded me of <i>Tinkers</i>. I think I’d get more out of this if I read it a second time.<br />
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<i>My Cousin Rachel</i> -- Daphne du Maurier<br />
This one is a similar situation to the Schaeffer book: I read <i>My Cousin Rachel</i> first, enjoyed it, and then went on to buy and read a bunch more books by Daphne du Maurier. (I actually own a pile by her that I haven’t read yet -- she wrote A LOT of books!) Since it was my first du Maurier, and it was so long ago, I’d like to go back to it.<br />
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<a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2010/05/not-really-review-of-king-dork-by-frank.html" target="_blank"><i>King Dork</i></a> -- Frank Portman<br />
This is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read -- laugh-so-hard-my-stomach-hurts kind of funny. <br />
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<a href="http://www.allthepartsofmylife.com/2009/10/discovering-mesmerizing-novel-florida.html" target="_blank"><i>Florida</i></a> -- Christine Schutt<br />
This book mesmerized me. I’ve since read two other novels by Schutt, and one story collection, and they were all good, but they didn’t <b>infect</b> me the way <i>Florida</i> did. <br />
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<i>Appetites: Why Women Want</i> -- Caroline Knapp<br />
I’ve struggled with my addictive tendencies, and still do too much emotional overeating. This book touched me deeply, and I probably should have read it again before now.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-47497235547653165722014-10-20T19:50:00.002-05:002014-10-20T19:50:36.517-05:00Go read this book! Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky by David Connerley Nahm<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXVRICtyhI-hrSRgiA3aLSO8zT3SGVX5J9vAPQwM23RkVfNrCQbh-_AvmmJ0_KFHVsUAKIHIZknbz6vCNB4mMwx5FgtcYqfSTceiavPmaMVMlhSgHHG9a4TZft6ZiZI5LcUUs6T14EVE/s1600/Ancient+Oceans+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXVRICtyhI-hrSRgiA3aLSO8zT3SGVX5J9vAPQwM23RkVfNrCQbh-_AvmmJ0_KFHVsUAKIHIZknbz6vCNB4mMwx5FgtcYqfSTceiavPmaMVMlhSgHHG9a4TZft6ZiZI5LcUUs6T14EVE/s1600/Ancient+Oceans+cover.jpg" height="320" width="233" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky</i> is the kind of book that can cast a spell over you, one that pulls you in. The writing is so beautiful, and the book’s mood so evocative, after you finish it, you’ll find yourself wanting to read it again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I learned about this debut novel when the author, <a href="http://www.dcnahm.com/">David Connerley Nahm</a>, was <a href="http://otherppl.com/david-connerley-nahm-interview/">interviewed</a> on Brad Listi’s <a href="http://otherppl.com/">Other Ppl</a> podcast. (That’s the podcast formerly known as Other People, which is still called “Other People” but is now spelled in that shorter and hipper style.) During the interview, I heard that the book was getting good reviews, that it involved kids telling scary stories, that Nahm is actually a practicing lawyer, and that he spent fifteen years (off and on) writing this novel. I decided to check <a href="http://tscpl.org/">my public library</a>'s catalog, and was amazed to see that it had been pre-ordered. (This appears to be the first book published by <a href="http://twodollarradio.com/">Two Dollar Radio</a> that my library has purchased.) When it was available and I checked it out, I was honored and excited to see I was the <b>first</b> person to borrow it!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The book is about Leah Shepherd, a woman directing a non-profit agency in her hometown of Crow Station, Kentucky. When she was about ten years old, her younger brother, Jacob, went missing. He was never found, neither alive nor dead. The story is told by a third-person narrator who <b>might</b> be omniscient, but if he is, he certainly doesn’t tell us everything. Most of the book is written from Leah’s perspective, though some of the short sections put us inside other characters’ heads -- primarily Leah’s mother, but also her father, and Jacob (in flashbacks). There are also passages about the everyday life of the town and its residents, which add to the immediacy of the story. I felt like I was inside the skin of everyone in Crow Station.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The story is not linear, and there’s not much “action.” Instead, Nahm masterfully takes us inside Leah’s thoughts, emotions, and memories. We see her at work, or walking outside, or talking with her mother, and alongside the mundane activities of most days, we watch her mind wander, and we learn about her past. Through her, we get to know Jacob, find out what they both were like as children, and share the confusion and grief the family felt when Jacob first disappeared, and in the months and years that followed. In the same way that people get distracted, or if they see or hear something that reminds them of something else -- perhaps from far away and many years in the past -- the novel follows Leah’s trains of thought more than any kind of plot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The best thing about Ancient Oceans of Central Kentucky is the quality of the writing. At the most basic level -- sentences and paragraphs -- this is truly a fantastic book. Here are a few excerpts to give you a sense of the style:</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">It is impossible to sleep in such heat, the body turning and twisting and tacky with sweat, so everyone stays up all night, listening to the chorus of crickets sounding the depth of the dark. And every night is every night that ever was all at once and every lonely boy prone in his bed is every lonely girl prone in hers, chests heaving with that painful pressure of hoping that there is someone out there unable to sleep on their account. The thunder ends. The crickets quiet. The houses settle and the only sound left is heavy breath in the night air. They get up, walk to the window and stare out at the dark yard, shallow breaths catching as they watch the shifting shape of the shadows, but it was nothing, they are certain, nothing but breeze, nothing, they are certain. (p. 28)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Distant howls and cries. They crept up the stairs toward a dim hallway and heard a voice, distant and low, and they knew that they’d found the horrific heart of the crumbling maze and would have to face the creature that writhed there. They peeked around the corner, to see what they could see. (p. 14)</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">And for this one, part of a description of Leah's workplace, I just had to share a photo of page 69 so you'd get the full effect:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">As I read <i>Ancient Oceans</i>, the other book that kept coming to mind was <i>Tinkers</i> by Paul Harding, another stream-of-consciousness type of novel with gorgeous language, that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize. Do I need to say more than that? David Connerley Nahm is a gifted writer, and I hope this novel becomes one of those small press success stories. And then, I hope he can find time to write <b>more</b> beautiful books.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-14383989507851627442014-10-17T15:58:00.000-05:002014-10-18T14:05:42.900-05:00Yep, I'm doing Dewey's Read-a-thon!<br />
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I took the day off from work, but since the boys were also out of school, and Jeff left a to-do list for me, I haven't had a chance to do what I'd originally planned to do today: to get some more of my books in order before the <a href="http://24hourreadathon.com/" target="_blank">read-a-thon</a>, and do some of the housecleaning I won't do tomorrow because I will be reading. So, this is not a long or fancy or detailed post, but just a quick one to say:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: large;">It's Read-a-Thon time, and I am <b>IN</b>!</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">I'm so excited for tomorrow! :-)</span></span></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: small;"><span style="color: black;">Updating at 2pm Central Time, 10/18</span></span></b><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">The read-a-thon started at 7am my time, but I didn't start reading until 8. My progress so far:</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">8-9am: <i>Faithful and Virtuous Night</i> by Louise Gluck (poems), 35 p.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">9-10am: Gluck, 23 p.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">10-11am: Gluck, 11 p. (finished book)</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">11am-12noon: <i>Station Eleven</i> by Emily St. John Mandel (novel), 18 p.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">noon-1pm: Mandel, 24 p.</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;">1-2pm: none -- I had lunch, looked at a few blogs, then took a shower and got dressed. I feel refreshed and am ready to get back to <i>Station Eleven</i>, which is <b>very good</b> so far!</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span> </span></span></div>
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© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-27595577683760491772014-10-05T09:19:00.001-05:002014-10-05T09:19:44.202-05:00Book review: Home Leave by Brittani Sonnenberg<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGGalWFPm1xDfBPDZhQLKC-L9g7X7GfZSaiR-hh5tAaqfpmAtpYB6FvSPJrJDN0vuI055YTwhjL8PYBHDF6LYsPOf7xuOznaOc6zzrRD43VjrhT3yA9ppJCg-F0HKbxgSnUHZrkxWHWxU/s1600/Home+Leave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGGalWFPm1xDfBPDZhQLKC-L9g7X7GfZSaiR-hh5tAaqfpmAtpYB6FvSPJrJDN0vuI055YTwhjL8PYBHDF6LYsPOf7xuOznaOc6zzrRD43VjrhT3yA9ppJCg-F0HKbxgSnUHZrkxWHWxU/s1600/Home+Leave.jpg" height="320" width="224" /></a></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ed49760f-e0a5-a418-ab84-de64bfbed381" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I really love this cover!) </span></div><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ed49760f-e0a5-a418-ab84-de64bfbed381" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br />
</div><div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-ed49760f-e0a5-a418-ab84-de64bfbed381" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I received an advance reader’s copy of <i>Home Leave</i>, the debut novel by Brittani Sonnenberg, through the <a href="http://www.librarything.com/" target="_blank">LibraryThing</a> Early Reviewers program. Many thanks to LT and to Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Group) for the opportunity to read and review it.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Description from </span><a href="http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/brittani-sonnenberg/home-leave/9781455548347/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Hachette’s site</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chris Kriegstein is a man on the move, with a global career that catapults his family across North America, Europe, and Asia. For his wife, Elise, the hardship of chronic relocation is soothed by the allure of reinvention. Over the years, Elise shape-shifts: once a secretive Southern Baptist, she finds herself becoming a seasoned expat in Shanghai, an unapologetic adulterer in Thailand, and, finally, a renowned interior decorator in Madison.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">But it's the Kriegstein daughters, Leah and Sophie, who face the most tumult. Fiercely protective of each other -- but also fiercely competitive -- the two sisters long for stability in an ever-changing environment. With each new move, the girls find they can count on only one thing: the consoling, confounding presence of each other.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When the family suffers an unimaginable loss, they can't help but wonder: Was it meant to be, or did one decision change their lives forever? And what does it mean when home is everywhere and nowhere at the same time? With humor and heart, Brittani Sonnenberg chases this wildly loveable family through the excitement and anguish of their adventures around the world.</span></div></blockquote><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Brittani Sonnenberg is a talented writer, and the range of narrative styles in <i>Home Leave</i> illustrates a willingness to be experimental. I looked at the other LibraryThing reviews, and a few of them expressed frustration at some of the narrators Sonnenberg used. For me, that was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book. When I started reading, I couldn’t figure out who was narrating. I re-read the description on the back of the book, looking for some hint. On page three or four, it became clear who it was, and I thought of starting my review with: “You won’t be able to guess the first narrator, so just go with it; you’ll know who it is by page four.” Other reviewers hated that beginning, but I thought it was cool. There are two chapters written as mini-plays, and there’s a chapter near the end of the book written in first person plural. <b>All</b> of these worked fine for me, but they won’t work for everyone.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The book opens with two epigraphs; one of these explains, “The purpose of home leave is to ensure that employees who live abroad for an extended period undergo reorientation and re-exposure in the United States on a regular basis.” Chris Kriegstein is from Indiana, and Elise grew up in Mississippi. The young family spends about four years in Atlanta, and two or three in Shanghai, but for sisters Leah and Sophie, “home” is really one another. Sonnenberg paints these two girls, and their relationship, very realistically. Leah sometimes takes care of Sophie, but is just as often annoyed with her. Leah is quiet and bookish, while Sophie is more energetic and adventurous. As Leah becomes a moody teenager, they drift apart somewhat … but not far apart.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Readers who prefer “likeable” characters could have problems with Elise. The publisher blurb says that she “shape-shifts,” and one of her identities is “unapologetic adulterer.” When Leah is a baby, Elise often feels trapped by motherhood, and when she learns she is pregnant for a second time, she isn’t happy about it. However, when the girls are a bit older and the family is abroad, Elise often seems like a “normal” mom: she has her quirks and bad moods, but it’s clear that she loves her daughters. Chris is probably the least vivid of the main characters, to me, and yet I <b>did</b> like him a good deal. We learn in the second chapter (which seems to be set the closest to present day) that Chris was a star athlete in his Indiana high school, became a successful businessman who lived in several countries, and is now his company’s CEO. He and Elise are still married and living in Madison, Wisconsin, having made it through her affair, his overseas jobs, their mutual grief.</span></div><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The backdrop of the novel is the panorama of international settings, but at its heart are grief and loss. The family suffers a tragedy, and can’t return to normal. There’s some irony, too, in the title of the book: “home leave” is what Elise and the girls take for a couple of months each summer, while Chris remains in China, but Leaving Home is what Chris and Elise both wanted desperately to do when they were growing up -- and succeeded, spending several years on the other side of the world. Leaving Home is what Leah and Sophie do as well, in very different ways. Sonnenberg weaves a fine tapestry of people, place, time, and loss, that will stay with me for a long time.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-34602291320312122872014-08-28T15:56:00.000-05:002014-08-28T15:56:59.742-05:00Women in Translation Month (#WITMonth): The Hunger Angel by Herta MüllerA blogger who goes by <a href="http://biblibio.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Biblibio</a> (and only just posted her real name this last week) created an event called Women in Translation Month, to increase awareness of books in translation written by female authors, and to highlight the fact that there are far more books by men translated into English than books by women. You can read more about it on the <a href="http://biblibio.blogspot.com/p/women-in-translation-month-2014.html" target="_blank">Biblibio blog</a>.<br />
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I've been following her posts all month and wanting to join in, if only in a small way, and finally have a small window of time to get this review up. Back in the spring of 2012, I won a copy of the novel <i>The Hunger Angel</i> by Nobel Prize-winning German author Herta Müller through <a href="http://www.librarything.com/" target="_blank">LibraryThing</a>'s Early Reviewers program. (It wasn't an ARC, but an actual hardcover book -- very rare in LTER giveaways! Many thanks to Henry Holt and Company, and of course to LibraryThing, for the opportunity to read and review the book.) I posted my review on LT in August 2012, but it appears that I never posted a review here on the blog. So, I decided to copy it here from LT, in recognition of #WITMonth. I'm thrilled that Biblibio decided to create this event, and I hope it has brought some much-needed attention to women writers in translation, and the fact that we need more of them!<br />
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<i>The Hunger Angel</i> tells the story of 17-year-old Leo Auberg's
deportation to a Soviet labor camp, and the five years he spent there.
If you read novels mainly for plot or character development, this one
might not be for you. It helps to know BEFORE you try to read it that
the story isn't really linear, but could instead be called episodic. The
chapters are very short, and some of them describe actions and events
that occur during Leo's time in the labor camp. However, some of them
are primarily descriptive; their purpose is not to move the story
forward, but to add another layer to our understanding of Leo's
experiences in the camp.<br />
<br />
Because the chapters are short and serve
these two different purposes, I found some to be more interesting than
others. It also made for a slightly disorienting reading experience. But
the book is well worth reading -- for the power of the writing and
language, and the light it shines on a dark period in history. Müller
places Leo's focus on physical experiences and specific objects, and
this stylistic decision draws the reader into the labor camp. I believe
that reading this novel is MEANT to be disorienting, that the reader
SHOULD feel a sense of unreality and nightmare, in between moments of
hypnotic focus on physical objects.<br />
<br />
Müller made the not-uncommon
decision to omit quotation marks from the novel. At some point while I
read, I realized that it also contains no question marks. In the
translator's note at the end of the book, Philip Boehm confirms that he
followed this stylistic choice from the German original -- and that's
where I learned there are also no semi-colons in the book. The limited
punctuation adds to the reader's confusion and disorientation,
particularly when reading a sentence that is obviously a question. The
last sentence in the chapter called "Cement" is, "So why can't I
disappear" (p. 33). This happens again and again, increasing the sense
of confusion and dislocation.<br />
<br />
Don't read <i>The Hunger Angel</i>
looking for plot, and don't try too hard to keep track of all the
characters mentioned -- many of them are not clearly defined, and not
too important in themselves. Read it to admire the way Müller uses
language to bring this dark history to life, and to pull you into Leo's
world.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-72315612030173252014-08-19T19:53:00.001-05:002014-08-19T19:53:45.742-05:00Book review: The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdqLXBY_azmQMhYd5nkAM19uaoYomWXTgpyLuJEv76A2hyphenhypheng4BCfLevabU1eV2_1vxiUA1Ka-fmXnYaMuIukRPfV_CQ_v5L_s4PrSuZm8o0HaiwXuAY1gRY6XspZYv4xhr9iEtmPlFYHs/s1600/Appetites+of+Girls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZdqLXBY_azmQMhYd5nkAM19uaoYomWXTgpyLuJEv76A2hyphenhypheng4BCfLevabU1eV2_1vxiUA1Ka-fmXnYaMuIukRPfV_CQ_v5L_s4PrSuZm8o0HaiwXuAY1gRY6XspZYv4xhr9iEtmPlFYHs/s1600/Appetites+of+Girls.jpg" height="320" width="219" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When I saw this book on </span><a href="http://www.librarything.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">LibraryThing’s</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Early Reviewers list this past spring, I knew it would be right up my alley (she said, while having an afternoon snack). So, thank you to LibraryThing, and to Putnam Books (<a href="http://www.penguin.com/" target="_blank">Penguin Group</a>), for the chance to read and review an advanced copy of <i>The Appetites of Girls</i>, the debut novel by Pamela Moses.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">From the Penguin website:</span></div>
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<i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Self-doubting Ruth is coddled by her immigrant mother, who uses food to soothe and control. Defiant Francesca believes her heavy frame shames her Park Avenue society mother and, to provoke her, consumes everything in sight. Lonely Opal longs to be included in her glamorous mother’s dinner dates—until a disturbing encounter forever changes her desires. Finally, Setsu, a promising violinist, staves off conflict with her jealous brother by allowing him to take the choicest morsels from her plate—and from her future. College brings the four young women together as suitemates, where their stories and appetites collide. Here they make a pact to maintain their friendships into adulthood, but each must first find strength and her own way in the world.</span></i><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The book is divided into three “Parts,” and also has a short prologue and epilogue. Part One introduces each of the girls at a critical point during childhood or early adolescence. Part Two details their meeting at Brown University as suitemates, the development of their friendships, and some of the significant experiences they have during those college years. Part Three explores the different paths they take after graduation. Within each Part, there are four long chapters, each narrated by one of the four main characters.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The primary narrator is Ruth; the prologue and epilogue are both in her voice, and the chapter subtitles that indicate who narrates never say “Ruth’s Story,” but always “My Story.” In spite of this, the book feels fairly well-balanced among the four characters. Their voices aren’t vastly different -- which might be seen as a minor “debut novel flaw” -- but their personalities and interests are distinct enough that after a few paragraphs, I easily settled into that character’s story and perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s probably clear from the description that this is character-driven literary fiction. Most of the “action” centers around university life and friendships, and family relationships. The novel doesn’t have a “plot” so much as incidents and vignettes, weaving together, and then shifting focus from one chapter, one narrator, to another, and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Moses’s decision to use first-person narration for each of the characters seems like a wise one to me. It brought an immediacy to all four young women’s experiences that made me feel like I was right there with them through everything. I wanted to speak up for them, and defend them: Ruth’s mother really needed to get off her daughter’s back, and Setsu’s brother made me <b>so angry</b>, I wanted to give him a smack. During the girls’ happier moments, I felt like I was celebrating with them, watching from a quiet corner of the room.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The themes surrounding food resonate throughout the novel, of course -- eating with loved ones, bingeing alone, rewarding oneself with sweet things, sometimes overeating, other times denying oneself the tastes one most desires. The actual appetites of the characters do play a role in some of the situations, but they do not yearn <b>only</b> for food. It is often so difficult to discover those things that bring us true happiness, that make us feel truly fulfilled. While we’re looking for “the real thing,” we might get sidetracked by lesser pleasures, or try to fill that empty feeling, at least for a moment, with things that are close at hand: chocolate, chips, cheeseburgers. As this novel illustrates, the real appetites of many girls and women are vastly more complicated, and can’t be satisfied with only dinner and dessert. In the stories of Ruth, Francesca, Setsu, and Opal, Pamela Moses has given us four young women who had to learn what they were truly hungry for, and then decide how they might attain it. Their journeys are full of missteps and regrets, some successes, and lasting friendships. I loved spending time with them.</span></div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-35373516348349592492014-04-27T15:23:00.001-05:002014-04-27T15:23:54.109-05:00Why I love love love Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg (especially the audiobook)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8rMUZ_MOG2hyphenhyphenFayLja_4F9HYRcao0acJXtktIdxrGd24LpWAtag4a88BcfrH3zBUrUNjAj4diMygXx28z6vlp-9EhybKcUGHrKX0z43wQgZy0BodHaegKoCDv2Hb5K2fb5quenSqiN7E/s1600/Wicketts+Remedy+2+versions.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8rMUZ_MOG2hyphenhyphenFayLja_4F9HYRcao0acJXtktIdxrGd24LpWAtag4a88BcfrH3zBUrUNjAj4diMygXx28z6vlp-9EhybKcUGHrKX0z43wQgZy0BodHaegKoCDv2Hb5K2fb5quenSqiN7E/s1600/Wicketts+Remedy+2+versions.jpg" height="243" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
When it was fairly new, my book group read <i>Bee Season</i> by Myla Goldberg. I liked it very much, and I think most of the other members of the group felt the same way. I had purchased the book, and I still have it. Of course, it was a bestseller, and was eventually adapted into a movie (which I never did see -- by then we had kids and less free time).<br />
<br />
Around the time when her follow-up, <i>Wickett's Remedy</i>, was published, Myla Goldberg was at a book event -- might have been Book Expo America, but I'm not sure -- and she gave a talk about some of the research she had done for the new book. (I watched this talk on television -- specifically, on <a href="http://www.booktv.org/">Book TV</a>.) She mentioned spending time in the reading room of New York Public Library, and requesting some World War I-era newspapers from the closed stacks. She talked about the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918. Her enthusiasm for her subjects, and for library research, made me like her even more than I'd liked her first book.<br />
<br />
In 2007, I came across the audiobook of <i>Wickett's Remedy</i> at the library, and checked it out. I was interested to hear the story, but doubly intrigued when I saw that Myla Goldberg was narrating it. Many authors are NOT great narrators, but having seen that talk on Book TV, I thought Goldberg might pull it off. She did not disappoint, and I fell in love with this novel. I even have it in my <a href="http://www.librarything.com/catalog/HeathMochaFrost/favorites">Favorites collection</a> on <a href="http://www.librarything.com/">LibraryThing</a>.<br />
<br />
The reviews were mixed for this book. Part of this has got to be because <i>Bee Season</i> was such a hit, and it would be hard for the next book to live up to that. (All this talk about Donna Tartt, who just won the Pulitzer for heaven's sake for <i>The Goldfinch</i>, her third novel, and how much people still love her debut, <i>The Secret History</i>, after all these years, and all they say about the second novel is, "Oh, she did have <i>The Little Friend</i> in between, but that wasn't as well-received." So a bit of sophomore slump is fairly common. Okay, sorry for the long aside.) But also, readers who were expecting something in the same vein as <i>Bee Season</i> were in for a bit of a shock. While the first book is contemporary, the second is set in Boston during the 1910s, and the largest part of the story is set around 1917 and 1918, with the backdrop of America's entrance into World War I, and the Spanish influenza epidemic. <i>Bee Season</i>, as I recall, has a fairly traditional, mostly linear narrative, while <i>Wickett's</i> is a patchwork of voices and formats.<br />
<br />
People who like mixed formats and somewhat experimental fiction, along with multiple narratives and timelines, should really try <i>Wickett's</i>. The main story is about Lydia Kilkenny, a young woman from an Irish Catholic South Boston family who works in a department store, meets and marries a medical student named Henry Wickett, then helps him to develop a "remedy" to ease people's minor ills. The secondary storyline is about a man named Quentin Driscoll and his "QD Soda," a product and company launched around 1918. These parts of the story are primarily told through excerpts from a newsletter, the "QDISPATCH" or "QD Dispatch," dated in the early 1990s. (Some of the QD stuff is maybe longer than it needs to be, but I found it mostly entertaining. And think about branding, brand loyalty, and consumer culture as it is today, and the QD Soda Company doesn't seem like a big stretch.)<br />
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The book also includes articles and letters from newspapers, many of which are taken directly from newspapers of that period. (In the audio, the news articles are accompanied by the clacking of typewriter keys.) While we spend much of the book very close to Lydia, the news clippings add a sense of the epidemic's scope, its terrible impact beyond the Boston of the novel. The Quentin Driscoll storyline also includes some correspondence: letters from an elderly man to his son, and from the management of a nursing facility to Ralph Finnister, the CEO of QD Soda in the 1990s.<br />
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Finally, there are the voices of those who have passed on, speaking from beyond the grave, giving further perspectives on the main action of the novel. So, while Lydia’s story is the largest part of the novel, and it’s written in typical third-person, linear fashion, it’s surrounded by notes in the margins, where these other people are adding their two cents to the narrative. I would guess this is the most disorienting part of reading the print version of the book, and it could have been frustrating to me as well. It might be difficult to know exactly where to “insert” the additional comments so that they fit into the flow of the story. Because I listened to the audio version, I didn’t have to make those decisions, it was all just read to me. Moreover, they are narrated by other people, not by Myla Goldberg, so it’s always clear that it’s an aside from a voice beyond, a sidestep from the main story. The CD’s box says, “Read by the Author, with David Aaron Baker, Chris Burns, Ilyana Kadushin and Stina Nielsen.”<br />
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The additional narrators and occasional sound effects help to bring the action to life. Goldberg’s lively delivery makes her a great companion as you follow Lydia’s journey from home to marriage, through grief, to the discovery of her true calling, and toward renewed hope. <i>Wickett's Remedy</i> has a sense of immediacy that brought me into Lydia’s life, and inside the influenza epidemic, and quite simply touched my heart. I wish more readers, and audiobook fans, might give it a try, and some of them fall in love with it as I did.<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-89498e31-a4b7-faf8-362a-9072e9c13061" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-89498e31-a4ba-ef0e-75f4-f43d4aa83aa0" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-5257671011898915052013-10-11T22:49:00.001-05:002013-10-11T22:49:26.826-05:00Read-a-Thon tomorrow!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMRJkn36621Dnx-D_jzC2w6CQODJ5-BZ3pLrHlvFR_wujuPHxOmAlqbmAD1NVbBuwPx0wB0zIaxd9yxdSQSQz68PWKE0bWiLlWst6kLTXbxHAOxXF1BAd8F4sIv718Fwgbpg-5jWmywY/s1600/readathon_heart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibMRJkn36621Dnx-D_jzC2w6CQODJ5-BZ3pLrHlvFR_wujuPHxOmAlqbmAD1NVbBuwPx0wB0zIaxd9yxdSQSQz68PWKE0bWiLlWst6kLTXbxHAOxXF1BAd8F4sIv718Fwgbpg-5jWmywY/s320/readathon_heart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
I took the day off from work today so I could do most of the housecleaning I usually do on Saturdays. Tomorrow, I'm going to be READING! Or at least that's my plan. Even if I don't read a TON, it feels good to have a good amount of cleaning done, and a block of time when I know I'll be able to read. At the very least, I want to finish <i>TransAtlantic</i> by Colum McCann, since we're discussing it at my book group in a few days. After that, it's all gravy.<br />
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Over 400 people have signed up to participate in the <a href="http://24hourreadathon.com/" target="_blank">24 Hour Read-a-Thon</a>. I'm so happy to be joining them!<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-68189332639514413812013-08-30T11:18:00.000-05:002013-08-30T11:18:31.610-05:00Book review: The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan<div dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-06471370-cff9-5127-fbe9-c1f6ccf53934" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Description from the </span><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/book/224186/the-panopticon-by-jenni-fagan" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Random House website</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais’s school uniform is covered in blood.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counter-culture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 10pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">First things first: <i>The Panopticon</i> by Jenni Fagan is a really good novel, but it's definitely not for everyone. There is more swearing in this book than in any other book I can remember reading, in my whole life. The F-word is on just about every page, at least once, and there's liberal use of s**t and c**t and I could go on. If you can't tolerate a large amount of foul language, don't go anywhere near this novel. (There's also a heavy Scottish dialect, which took me a little time to get used to. Maybe there are Scottish swears that I didn't even catch.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition: there is a lot of drug and alcohol use, and some violence. There is a lot more sexual talk than actual sex, but there are also multiple references to prostitution, and a few mentions of rape. But, <b>trigger warning</b>, there is one rape scene in the book. After the first moments, once it's clear what's happening, the chapter ends, so I don't feel it was gratuitous, but it was disturbing enough that a warning is appropriate. I'll try to avoid anything else that could be considered a spoiler.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Oh, I might as well add, the narrator is a 15-year-old girl who is probably bisexual, and there are two lesbian characters. If you're still interested in the novel after I've already warned you about the swearing, the sexual talk, the fights, and the rape, then hopefully a couple of teenage girls kissing is no big deal for you.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">What I really loved about this novel was the way it took me into Anais's head. It's a scary place to be, but she's incredibly tough -- and she has to be strong, to have survived her turbulent childhood. She's still able to find beauty in the world, sometimes. One day, she goes by herself into the woods.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I climb up on my oak tree, let myself fall back until I am hanging by my knees, hair trailing across the forest floor. It's soothing. The trees still have some leaves, all dry and crackly. The rest are mulch. Hundreds of tiny wishes drift through the woods, they sparkle in the dim, and dance up as silver orbs. (p. 157)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> Anais also has a savage sense of humor. There's a flashback to when she learned how to ride a bike, and she still needed training wheels.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I remember I had this amazing bike, a chopper with a flag on the back. I had tae use stabilizers even though I was nine; I learned to ride it so late it was embarrassing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Why did you not learn before you were nine?" some kid asked me.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I wobbled around him with one stabilizer lifting off the ground.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"My mum was too busy tae teach me."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Too busy doing what?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"Your da."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"What?"</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">"And your brother." (p. 98)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When social workers informed her they believed she had "a borderline personality," she replied, "'It's better than no personality'" (p.85). In a scene where she's being interviewed by the police, she gives her name as, "'Minnie Mouse, address: Disneyland'" (p. 96). There are times when she's afraid, and times when she feels vulnerable, but most of the time, she's completely, bitingly, unapologetically herself.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">And yet, sometimes <b>she</b> doesn’t seem to be sure who she is.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Identity problem. Funny that. Fifty-odd moves, three different names, born in a nuthouse to a nobody that was never seen again. Identity <i>problem</i>? I dinnae have an identity problem -- I dinnae have an identity, just reflex actions and a disappearing veil between this world and the next. (p. 86)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I first heard about this book on the podcast The Readers, where after mentioning it on several episodes, they chose it for The Readers Book Club earlier this year. (Read more about it and listen to the episode </span><a href="http://bookbasedbanter.co.uk/thereaders/2013/04/14/the-readers-book-club-8-the-panopticon-jenni-fagan/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">; be aware that the last section does include spoilers, but Simon and Gav will warn you when they’re coming.) For the Book Club episodes, the hosts usually talk with the author to find out a bit more about them, and how they developed the story, and ask some questions about specific characters or themes. During the interview with Jenni Fagan, she said that she had been “in care” when she was young. She also said that she has ideas for half a dozen or so novels, all very different from one another, and that she hadn’t initially planned for her book about a teenager in care to be her first novel, but that’s just how it turned out.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Fagan doesn’t say very much in that interview about her own experiences in care -- which is completely understandable, and not something most people would press her about. However, having been in a couple of foster homes, a psych hospital, and a group home at various times during my own childhood, I desperately wanted to ask Jenni questions like, “Are there really so many drugs being taken right there in the group home/youth facility, and if so how is that possible? How does everyone get them?” Also, “What is the drinking age in Scotland? How is it that all these teenagers in care have access to that much alcohol?” This is probably the only area where my “willing suspension of disbelief” faltered a little -- although at the same time, I realize that Scotland and the U.S. are different countries, my experience was from 25-30 years ago, and Anais had been in care her whole life, while the periods I was out of my home were short, no more than a few months at a time. (Reading over what I just wrote, it seems weird that I was totally fine with the parts about faces hovering in the walls, men without noses, flying cats, and the idea that Anais might have been grown in a petri dish!)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Overall, I found <i>The Panopticon</i> to be very good, and ultimately inspiring. A lot of the book is dark, but the humorous moments, the poetic images, and the caring connections Anais makes with several other characters, these parts seem that much brighter in contrast. As I said, it’s not a book for everyone, but I hope it finds a large number of readers who will try it and find the beauty within it.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(All quotes and page numbers are from an advance reader’s edition, and might differ slightly from those in the finished publication. I borrowed it from the staff room at the library.)</span></div>
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© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-57643444960482063902013-07-23T19:08:00.000-05:002013-07-23T19:08:05.494-05:00Book review: The Spark: a Mother's Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine BarnettI received an advance reader’s edition of <i>The Spark: a Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius</i>, by Kristine Barnett, through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. The quotes in my review are from that advance copy, and might differ slightly from the published book. The back cover gives a good overview:<br /><br /><i>Kristine Barnett’s son Jacob has an IQ higher than Einstein’s, a photographic memory, and he taught himself calculus in two weeks. At nine he started working on an original theory in astrophysics that experts believe may someday put him in line for a Nobel Prize. Last summer, at age twelve, he became a paid researcher in quantum physics. But the story of Kristine’s journey with Jake is all the more remarkable because his extraordinary mind was almost lost to autism. At age two, when Jake was diagnosed, Kristine was told he might never be able to tie his own shoes.</i><br /><br />It took a while for the book to arrive, and then it took ME a while to work it into my reading priorities, but when I finally got started on it, I was completely absorbed. In the first twelve to fifteen months of his life, Jacob Barnett was a normal, happy, affectionate baby, with occasional hints of above average intelligence: Kristine writes, “He learned the alphabet before he could walk, and he liked to recite it backward and forward” (p. 13). But around 14 months old, Kristine and her husband Michael began to notice small changes in Jake. He talked less, smiled less, and became generally less interested in other people. Kristine ran a home daycare, and the other children treated Jake as their younger sibling. During that first year, he loved interacting with the other kids, and trying to do the things they did, but by the time he reached about 15 months old, they could barely get his attention. Instead, he was fascinated by shadows, by the play of light and dark on the walls.<br /><br />Kristine describes how Jake is gradually swallowed up into autism, to the point where he stopped speaking for a couple of years. Kristine and Michael initially resist the diagnosis, but not for long: all the signs are there. The first formal evaluation results in a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, but after the second evaluation, before Jake’s third birthday, the diagnosis is revised to “full-blown, moderate to severe autism” (p. 32). The therapist who conducted the second evaluation explained that “Jake had likely been diagnosed with Asperger’s (a mild form of autism characterized by relatively high functioning) instead of full-blown autism because his IQ was so high -- a shocking, off-the-charts 189 on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children” (p. 32).<br /><br />Chapter after chapter, the story of this amazing boy, and this incredibly resilient family, held me enthralled. In many ways, the Barnetts are an “ordinary” family -- while Kristine ran the home daycare, Michael worked at Target, then later at Circuit City, until his store was closed early in the recession. Kristine’s anecdotes about toddler Jake include Matchbox cars and crayons. They’re hard-working, generous people, who love their kids and want to do what’s best for them, and try to help others who are facing difficulties too.<br /><br />In short, the Barnetts are a lot like most other American middle-class families. But, they have a son who is profoundly gifted. Kristine writes, “According to Miraca Gross in her book <i>Exceptionally Gifted Children</i>, there is less than one profoundly gifted person per one million” (p. 230). This boy essentially stopped interacting and communicating with other people when he was a toddler, and his parents were told by experts that Jake might never speak again. We know from the back of the book that Kristine decided to follow the “spark” she saw in Jake, to help him pursue his passionate interests, and this helped him eventually overcome the symptoms of autism, so he could come back into “the regular world,” yet still be himself. Jake’s story is worth reading on its own, but Kristine’s story, and that of the whole family, just adds to the richness of the book. The back cover doesn’t mention that Kristine and Michael’s second baby had a rare and potentially fatal condition; that Kristine herself was later diagnosed with another serious health problem; that in addition to the regular daycare, the Barnetts created a charitable program for autistic children, run out of their home. Kristine writes:<br /><br /><i>So every morning, I’d open the day care as usual and work a full nine-hour day there. But twice a week, after the day care children went home, I’d vacuum the room and set up a mock kindergarten for autistics kids. I called the program Little Light. … [I]nstead of hammering away at all the tasks these kids <b>couldn’t</b> do, I thought we’d start with what they <b>wanted</b> to do (p. 68).</i><br /><br /><br />I can tell you that <i>The Spark</i> is inspiring, a testament to the power of love and family, and also the value of going with your gut, especially with regard to what’s best for your kids. But I’d rather say that Jake and his family, and the journey they’ve taken so far, is just fascinating. I feel like I know them, yet I also believe that Kristine is a superwoman. If you have kids, or want to have kids, you should read this book. If you know someone who is autistic, have an interest in autism, or enjoy any kind of “medical memoir,” you should read this book. If you’re an educator of any kind, you should read this book. If you don’t fall into any of those other categories, but you just like any story about people facing obstacles and working to overcome them, then for heaven’s sake, JUST READ THIS BOOK.<br /><br />I am grateful to LibraryThing and Random House for the chance to read and review this advance edition, and for the privilege of meeting Jacob and his family. To author and supermom Kristine Barnett, who wrote that this book is “the chance to share Jake and his gifts with the world” (p. 243), thank you, thank you, thank you!<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-5652141787634963812013-03-23T20:12:00.000-05:002013-03-23T20:12:39.563-05:00Want to read: Far from the Tree by Andrew SolomonI listened to a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2013/mar/22/psychology-solomon-bellow-grosz-podcast" target="_blank">Guardian Books podcast</a> today that included an interview with writer Andrew Solomon about his latest book, <em>Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity</em>. I didn't realize until today that it had won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle award for general non-fiction. One of his earlier books, <em>The Noonday Demon: an Atlas of Depression</em>, is a favorite that I've recommended to others.<br />
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<em>Far from the Tree</em> explores families where there is a profound difference between parents and child: deaf child of hearing parents, gay child of straight parents, child with schizophrenia, child becomes a criminal, and even child prodigy who possesses an incredible talent. It took him over 10 years to research and write it. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/16/andrew-solomon-far-from-tree-interview" target="_blank">This page</a> on the Guardian website has a short article, and also a video of Solomon discussing the book.<br />
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Once in a while, I learn about a book that I want to buy new, and even in hardcover, because it's important to me to support that author's work and career -- a financial affirmation, if you will. Even though it's over 900 pages, I'm pretty sure I'll be buying my own copy of <em>Far from the Tree</em>, and soon. And it might take me years, but I <strong>will</strong> read it!<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-4660211464067939652012-11-30T22:35:00.000-06:002012-11-30T22:37:20.797-06:00Short thoughts on reading and non-reviewingSo I spent several weeks in October and November re-reading <i>The Passage</i> by Justin Cronin, then reading its sequel, <i>The Twelve</i>, which I enjoyed a great deal but didn't LOVE the way I loved <i>The Passage</i>. Then I spent a few days reading the play <i>The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow: an Instant Message with Excitable Music</i> by Rolin Jones, the guy I knew briefly during my time at Smith, who went on to write for the TV show <i>Friday Night Lights</i>, and who inspired me to write a poem called "The Walk." Anyway, after reading the two Cronin books (both basically doorstops, though <i>The Twelve</i> is maybe 200 pages shorter), and then a really skinny book (the play), I'm not sure what to read next. Also, book group is in less than two weeks, and we never actually picked a book for December, so there's nothing lined up with a deadline attached.<br />
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This got me thinking a bit about my reading habits, and how I seem never to write reviews -- or almost never. A lot of the time, even when I know I have to write a review, like for LibraryThing's Early Reviewer books, it's <b>very, very difficult</b> for me to get around to writing it. It seems a little strange to me, because even though I'm an inveterate procrastinator, I truly do love to write. (You probably can't tell that from my blog this past year or two, I've neglected it so badly.)<br />
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I'm thinking that, sometimes, there are books that I'm <b>compelled</b> to write about. In the early days of my blog, I remember feeling this way about both <i>The Book Thief</i> and <i>The Glass Castle</i>. But for every book that grabs me that strongly, I usually read eight or ten that I enjoy to a greater or lesser degree, but don't feel so overwhelmed by them that I can't move on from them until I've mulled them over in writing. I think this is the main reason I've never considered myself a book blogger, even when I was posting more regularly, and most of what I was posting was book-related: because it's such a chore for me to <b>review</b> books.<br />
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And suddenly, I'm reminded of a discussion I had at Smith with my advisor, Doug Patey. I was having a rough semester, and I was sitting in his office, probably getting some combination of academic guidance and moral support. I remember saying, "I don't want to rip books apart, I just want to read them and enjoy them." He asked, "Can I give you some advice?" I said he could. "Don't go to grad school for English."<br />
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So that's it, really: I do enjoy writing about books, in general, but it can be hard to review them, because I don't want to rip them apart. Sometimes I don't WANT to look at them too closely, but just enjoy them for what they are.<br />
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The other part is, if I finish reading a book and I don't feel an overwhelming <b>need</b> to think it over, to work through my ideas and emotions in writing, then what I <b>must</b> do next, as soon as possible, is decide what I'll read next, and then start reading it. The short periods "between books" can be fraught with uncertainty, but also full of wondrous possibility. What, what should I read next?? And will it be thrilling and amazing, will it be beautiful, will it be moving, or thought-provoking? Will it change how I feel or think about things, will it show me something new? Will it change my life?<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-64454075012908802512012-08-01T19:17:00.000-05:002012-08-01T19:21:39.517-05:00Late July journal updatesWow, I knew I hadn't posted in a while, but didn't realize it's been <b>over two months</b> -- jeesh!<br />
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And truthfully, this is sort of a faux-post, which I'm able to put up only because Ryan's baseball coach decided not to go to the post-season awards night. Apparently Ryan was one of only two or three kids who were planning to attend, so the coach decided it wasn't worth it. Since it was over 100 degrees out AGAIN, I was totally fine with that decision. :-D<br />
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But anyway -- sorry about that tangent -- I finally pulled out the spiral notebook I was writing in last summer and fall, and wrote two entries this past week: last Friday, 7/27, and Sunday night, 7/29. So, the pictures below of those pages will give additional info about what we've been up to, besides being too busy to blog and too hot to have much outdoor enjoyment. (Yes, too hot, for weeks and weeks and weeks, I think. Even <b>I</b> am thinking ahead to the fall with a touch of fondness, which is almost unheard of!)<br />
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I miss you, little blog!<br />
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© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-5435126694898489712012-05-19T21:17:00.000-05:002012-05-19T21:30:22.302-05:00New second job, changes at first job, sports, clubs, & doctor appts.I've found myself unexpectedly alone in the house with nothing I immediately need to do, so I'm writing this to let people know that, Yes, I'm still alive, but I really HAVE been too busy to get in touch and catch up. The calendars for April and May look like this:<br />
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First: after watching the checkbook numbers get smaller and smaller in recent months, and our finances get tighter and tighter, I finally found a way to get some extra money. I happened to check the <a href="http://tscpl.org/" target="_blank">TSCPL</a> job page and found they were looking for a shelver, an 18-hour a week position. Now, I lost count long ago of the number of times I'd applied to work at TSCPL, and even the number of times I was actually interviewed. I know the first time I applied there was before I was pregnant with Kyle, so it was <b>at least</b> 13 years ago! But never before had I tried to get a job where I was so obviously overqualified, which also suited my particular talents so well. I actually wrote a cover letter to go along with my application and resume, explaining that I have always loved putting books and other media in order, and that I'd recently rearranged a section of F. Scott Fitzgerald right there at TSCPL! (Sort of like, I'm willing to put your books in order anyway, so it would be awesome if you'd pay me to do it. No, that's not actually what I said, but it's how I felt.)<br />
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So, long story short, they were really hiring <b>two</b> shelvers, and incredibly, 13+ years after my first attempt, I finally became an employee of TSCPL! I just got my first real paycheck yesterday, and thank heavens, the extra money is going to be a huge help for us. I'm working 58 hours a week, but we need the money, and shelving books and DVDs feels less like work than any other second job. Don't get me wrong, it <b>IS</b> work, and there are moments when I don't love it, but mostly I enjoy it, I like the people, and I'm still amazed that I'm finally working there.<br />
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As for my full-time job, I just learned this past week that a decision has been made to "downsize" my library, and to relocate it -- though it might only be moving to a room adjacent to its current location but <b>much smaller</b>. I expect to get more concrete information this week, but my colleague Becky and I have already starting some initial planning about what to have in the new location (if there's room), and what we'll add to our existing "library annex," back in the basement of the lab, in the "old library." I'm trying to stay as positive as I can about it; for one, there hasn't been any talk of actually eliminating the library and/or my position, so priority number one, remaining employed and with health insurance, seems to be secure. Yay!<br />
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Between the lack of finances, the workload at my day job, and the potential second job, I wavered about whether to attend the <a href="http://www.sla.org/" target="_blank">Special Libraries Association</a> conference in Chicago this July. After getting the shelving job, I decided to skip the conference this year, and just plan to go to the <a href="http://www.mtkn.org/" target="_blank">MTKN</a> and <a href="http://www.libraryconnectivity.org/" target="_blank">pooled fund </a>meetings this coming fall. Now, knowing that I could be moving my library in early or mid-July, it's definitely for the best that I didn't make those plans and register for SLA, since I really need to <b>be here</b> to move my library.<br />
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The boys have been busy, and have kept <b>us</b> busy, with the usual sports and school activities. Ryan's new baseball team has practices and games, but they're more competitive, and playing in tournaments -- two so far, both in KC (though the second one had games on Saturday but was rained out on the Sunday). I think we'll be in two more before the season ends, but I admit, I lose track. Both boys' basketball season ended in mid-March, but then Kyle signed up for a 5-week spring basketball league, which just ended three days ago. This past week has actually seen the end of the boys' spring after-school running club, which met two days a week, and Kyle's bridge club, which was held before school three or four days a week for the past five weeks. The bridge club ended on Thursday morning with a tournament, and on Thursday afternoon, almost 90 kids in the running club participated in a 5K run-walk. Ryan made fourth place in the 5K, and Kyle came in tenth.<br />
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Finally, this past Wednesday, Ryan had his first appointment with the dermatologist, who confirmed what we'd suspected for the past couple of months: the areas of "hypopigmentation" on Ryan's face and neck are caused by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitiligo" target="_blank">vitiligo</a>. It was nearly invisible last fall and winter, but with the warm days and baseball practices came the early spring tan, and not only were the patches more visible, but as weeks went by, we could see they were getting larger. And of course, it took a long time to get to the dermatologist: I called his regular doctor at the start of spring break for a referral, so we got in six to eight weeks later than we would have liked.<br />
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It's not known exactly what causes vitiligo, but it's thought to be an autoimmune disorder, where the immune system attacks or suppresses the cells that cause skin pigment. There's no cure, but there are some different treatments available. We're starting with an ointment that works to suppress the immune system in those small areas, so the skin might repigment. It will be weeks before we'll know if it's working. We made a follow-up appointment for mid-August. When I asked the doctor if it's likely to spread further, he said, "It can do whatever it wants."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGa42V35Ac9ciJ5ddwVHGdd15xHcZzG3xjGo9t32_98F9M55x95wgZ2cLLJ9QfmFp2en9ilct8t36t6K4bfECIliDdEozoEEN73kCmN6CijxrVmkwNeha4SIurgOHG1Nj_w6bkOC3yTyc/s1600/100_3242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGa42V35Ac9ciJ5ddwVHGdd15xHcZzG3xjGo9t32_98F9M55x95wgZ2cLLJ9QfmFp2en9ilct8t36t6K4bfECIliDdEozoEEN73kCmN6CijxrVmkwNeha4SIurgOHG1Nj_w6bkOC3yTyc/s320/100_3242.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ryan, posing for me a few weeks ago</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFnzjFj87T1iYUGFG7lCRwmuAgrZrd6bNH6HuLpzveVJrG_4VDFa4ocKvhRNPPWqE7N6NuEJrUrzCNn_fcC_CslScwW48YS_os_eaH-SNlRjkFCvoKxGKX_BEInkeUM-8cfLmnr97bDE/s1600/100_3243.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPFnzjFj87T1iYUGFG7lCRwmuAgrZrd6bNH6HuLpzveVJrG_4VDFa4ocKvhRNPPWqE7N6NuEJrUrzCNn_fcC_CslScwW48YS_os_eaH-SNlRjkFCvoKxGKX_BEInkeUM-8cfLmnr97bDE/s320/100_3243.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyle and Ryan (not fighting, that's unusual)</td></tr>
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I hate that Ryan has to deal with this, but so far, he's been good about it, and he hasn't been teased. Because he's been going to school with most of the same kids for years, and the school year was maybe 3/4 over before it started really showing, I hope most of the kids in school will just think, "That's still the same smart, fast, goofy Ryan, his face just looks a little different." And, although we'll need to be even more vigilant with the sunscreen, vitiligo itself doesn't cause him any pain or itching, and there's no health danger directly connected with it. So far, it seems the thing that annoys him the most is that "the kids who ask me what happened to my face, they're usually the same ones I've already told a million times but they keep asking me." The doctor gave us the option of no treatment or start with the ointment, and I asked Ryan to decide. Since he chose the ointment, I hope it helps.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-81567739767567913322012-04-14T20:46:00.001-05:002012-04-14T20:46:31.807-05:00A Fraction of the Whole: SO FUNNY!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYJICjUmCTzliKh_cltjwVvZAXk8RGhINpdcZr3nEI91oleS0XMa_raUodU3829G0rhGEfhzamZYSBXDmqfUYWLcUzknmJdmMfa7igGQePu6pmoRgtdVMZfxLVpXoDeCa0DiosCaxjFE/s1600/Fraction+of+Whole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYJICjUmCTzliKh_cltjwVvZAXk8RGhINpdcZr3nEI91oleS0XMa_raUodU3829G0rhGEfhzamZYSBXDmqfUYWLcUzknmJdmMfa7igGQePu6pmoRgtdVMZfxLVpXoDeCa0DiosCaxjFE/s320/Fraction+of+Whole.jpg" width="224" /></a></div>
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Of all the sentences in all the books I read in 2011, this sentence has to be one of my favorites:<br />
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<i>Until now, I'd never realized how much Dad resembled a dog being pushed unwillingly into a swimming pool.</i><br />
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It's from <i>A Fraction of the Whole</i>, the debut novel by Australian writer Steve Toltz. It was around that part of the book (page 430 of the 530-page hardcover edition) that I asked myself, "How can a person be so witty and creative and <b>funny</b> for so many pages?"<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
I bought this used hardcover copy at <a href="http://www.gohastings.com/" target="_blank">Hastings</a> (check out the "Pass It On" sticker in my cover scan!) in late 2010, after hearing Ann Kingman rave about it several times on the <a href="http://booksonthenightstand.com/" target="_blank">Books on the Nightstand</a> podcast. I read it in the fall of 2011, and it was a wild and wacky ride, and I completely loved it. I have a dozen sticky notes marking particularly funny passages, in addition to the one on page 430. I kept this book on my own nightstand for <b>months</b>, always planning to post a review of it, or at least a post collecting some of the most hilarious bits. I actually started writing this post in October after the last 24 Hour Read-a-Thon -- so, almost six months ago! But now, all I really need to say is this: Go find yourself a copy of this book, suspend your disbelief, start reading the first page, and trust Steve Toltz to take you to crazy and fun places with some very unusual but often lovable characters.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-31959786202306113392012-03-03T22:17:00.001-06:002012-03-03T22:36:08.006-06:00Connecting the thoughts, one book to the nextOver the past two weeks, I feel like I've entered a "perfect storm" of sorts, or at least a perfect <i>reading</i> storm, if such a thing exists. It took me far too long to finish reading my latest LibraryThing Early Reviewer book, entitled <i>Manage Your Depression through Exercise</i>, but very near the end, I found a section that strongly resonated for me, about anger. There was a checklist of signs and symptoms that can indicate "hidden anger." Out of 33 items, I checked off 11, and truthfully, there were a few more that I pondered over. (There's also "high blood pressure," which shouldn't apply to me as my BP has run low all my life, but the last few times I've had it taken, the past year or two, it has seemed higher than ever before. But, I haven't had it taken in quite a while, so I didn't think I should check that one off.) This section in the book, and especially the checklist, got me thinking about anger, and about things in my life that make me angry...when really, I know in the logical part of my mind that I have it pretty good.<br />
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That Saturday, within a couple hours of finishing what I'd been calling "the depression exercise book," I'd fallen into true depression. It derailed much of my weekend, requiring me to take a long nap that afternoon. I don't recall much of that Sunday (Feb. 19); I think I did some housecleaning and listened to podcasts. Ryan had a basketball game Sunday evening, during which my mood became black and tears filled my eyes more than once. I had a small headache too, which didn't help.<br />
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I was between books, and reluctant to start reading Abraham Verghese's <i>Cutting for Stone</i> in the mood I'd been in. I eventually started the novel <i>The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things</i> by Carolyn Mackler. My mood recovered, and the book was an excellent companion for several days. Late in the book, the main character, Virginia, talks with her doctor about being angry at her mother. The doctor says, "Anger is a healthy emotion...as long as you can find ways to channel it where you don't hurt yourself in the process." And then he asks her, "Have you ever tried kickboxing?"<br />
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A light went on in my own mind, as I thought about the anger checklist, and how much I'd love to kick things and punch someone, and how such an activity could be both therapeutic <b>and</b> great exercise for me. I've since checked out a kickboxing DVD from the library, and although I've only watched it once so far, it was kind of fun and I'll definitely try it again.<br />
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This brings me to my latest audiobook, which has moved me so deeply that I went to Barnes & Noble yesterday and bought the hardcover (and with my member's discount and the last $5.00 on a gift card, I didn't spend much at all). It's called <i>Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking</i>, by Susan Cain. I could praise this book all day, so I hardly know where to begin, but at the most basic level, it discusses the strengths of the kinds of people who like to spend time in solitary pursuits and/or inside their own heads -- people who are usually shy, but also likely to be sensitive, creative, artistic, and thoughtful. In short, there's a lot of stuff in there that reminds me of me, and helps me to feel more normal. Introverts really <b>need</b> time away from others, and the time and space to engage in projects that interest them, and to do work that truly matters to them.<br />
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For me, it often comes back to writing. Oh, if only I had the time and space and energy to WRITE, then the non-writing hours, the hours in which my regular everyday life happens, would be more bearable. I don't know if this is true, but on some level, I believe it to be true, and of all the things that make me angry, it's the sense that my life now -- remember, it's not a bad life, I have a lot of things to be grateful for -- is so very far from the life on the page that I imagined I'd have, back when I was a teenager, when I wrote poem after poem, and kept a journal. I didn't see myself becoming a wife or mother, and for a while I didn't even see myself becoming a librarian. In my heart, I was a writer. Virginia Woolf put forward the argument that a woman needs a room of her own if she is to write. This is echoed in Susan Cain's book: many times, writers require quiet. Time, space, mental energy, and quiet -- a recipe for writing, with ingredients nearly impossible for me to come by.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-31008812416970345972012-02-12T08:58:00.001-06:002012-02-12T08:58:44.167-06:00In love with Lola and the Boy Next DoorI was browsing through my library's latest e-book additions, and saw <i>Lola and the Boy Next Door</i> by Stephanie Perkins. I knew nothing about the book, but I remembered book bloggers mentioning the title on Twitter a while ago, in tweet-sized bursts of excitement and anticipation. Figuring it would be a fun read, and a quick one, I placed a hold on it, and was able to start reading it about a week ago.<br />
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Lola is a high school junior who's dating a 22-year-old musician. She also has a unique fashion sense that includes designing and making her own clothes and wearing all kinds of wigs. As someone with very limited and hum-drum fashion experience, and having never worn a wig in my life (as far as I recall), it took me a while to get into those parts of the story, and to appreciate that aspect of Lola's character. But I enjoyed the book right from the start, and about a third of the way in, I was beyond hooked. This book is full of squee!<br />
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The Boy Next Door mentioned in the title isn't the musician boyfriend who's really a bit too old for Lola, but The Boy Who Used to Live Next Door and Broke Lola's Heart Before Moving Away. Early in the story, Lola sees her neighbors moving out, and soon, the family of The Boy Next Door moves back in. Please suspend your judgment on this point: the boy's name is Cricket Bell. I think Cricket is a completely idiotic choice for a name, especially for a male, and it only makes a tiny bit more sense when we know his twin sister is named Calliope. Beautiful and drool-worthy people can have less-than-lovely names; I had a crush on a boy named Harvey when I was very young, who coincidentally had the same kind of dark hair and bright blue eyes that Stephanie Perkins has given to Cricket Bell, and while I found the name Harvey unfortunate, the fact that I remember him fondly (dreamily?) some 27 years later is proof that a person can have a lot of beauty lying behind a less-than-flattering name.<br />
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So, Cricket has grown into a handsome young man, which is not surprising. What <i>did</i> surprise me was the fact that he was actually a nice guy, a truly good person, almost from his first appearance in the book. He didn't play games with Lola, but told her early in the story that he'd felt badly about their falling out before the Bells moved away, that he'd always thought she was special, that he'd always liked her, and still did. I don't read lots of young adult novels, but this seemed to me like a refreshing change, a very attractive guy openly proclaiming his feelings to a girl, because given their history, he thinks it would be wrong to pretend he isn't interested. Lola spent two years hating Cricket for hurting her, and it takes a while for her feelings to thaw. Also, Lola's relationship with Max, her musician boyfriend, is pretty serious -- at least on Lola's side.<br />
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This book reminded me of what it was like to be a teenager, and at times it made me wish that I was 18 again. I finished reading it on Tuesday morning before work, but then on Wednesday night before bed, I was skimming back through it again, re-reading scenes and highlighting passages. I wasn't ready to leave it and move on to another book, and figured I'd need to force myself out of my (too-long, unintended) blogging hiatus to write about it, before starting my next read. It's hard to decide where to go now, when I'm still in Lola's room, standing behind her as she looks out the window and talks to Cricket, who's leaning out of his window in the house next door.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-41990894916703421502012-02-02T07:44:00.001-06:002012-02-02T07:46:01.541-06:00HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1joidby4E6hHz17E6afpzLbhLD7HmTic73nRJdvWtJZ87TXpHuosYb0YWtZib0-21proaTlG5BT-T1HoYzWKV1V0eimoTX-10fXVYA_BWanV7G6MQDCI5k29WbYT9MsFX5IVekjTbtw/s1600/Groundhog+pile+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR1joidby4E6hHz17E6afpzLbhLD7HmTic73nRJdvWtJZ87TXpHuosYb0YWtZib0-21proaTlG5BT-T1HoYzWKV1V0eimoTX-10fXVYA_BWanV7G6MQDCI5k29WbYT9MsFX5IVekjTbtw/s640/Groundhog+pile+1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-2677181195203823642011-10-22T09:20:00.000-05:002011-10-22T09:20:42.731-05:00Read-a-thon: We'll see how it goes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The day is finally here, Jeff and the boys are at basketball practice, but I didn't make specific Read-a-thon plans or sign up early because I didn't know if we'd have anything else going on. But, we took yesterday off and did a day trip, so the rest of my weekend is pretty flexible, and I'm hoping to spend a good portion of the day reading. My husband suggested I do most of my housecleaning today, then it will be out of the way and I can read even more tomorrow. I said, "But the Read-a-thon is TODAY." And he was all, "It's A read-a-thon, and there seems to always be one going on," and I said, "No, it's THE Read-a-thon, and it's every six months, only twice a year." And I shook my head and told him he didn't understand. Nothing new there, I guess.<br />
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But, I finished my print book last night, and I'm not sure if I'd want to dig into a new book, or if I should "sample" as many of my unread books as possible, to see if they grab me enough that I want to continue to keep them around the house, or if they don't, then I can weed them. If I decide to do my housecleaning, though, I'll start an audiobook -- specifically, my third go-round with <i>The Book Thief</i> by Markus Zusak. I'm going to lead the book group discussion in November, so need to "re-read" it in time to prepare. So if I listen while cleaning, the time will count as reading, and there's no need to plan or make any decisions, just get my mp3 player, get my cleaning supplies, and GO. (Of course, I like the idea of reading "in print" when I'm the only one home and the house is quiet, which is NOW, through the next couple hours.) I'll decide after I finish breakfast and get this posted.<br />
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To sum up: I'm tossing my hat in the ring, but with lowered expectations. If I don't get much reading done, I will not be miserable about it.<br />
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I have to add, I loved this <a href="http://reading-rambo.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-readathons-never-actually-work-for.html">pre-Read-a-thon post</a> from Alice at Reading Rambo, called "Why Readathons Never Actually Work for Me." The details are different, but the overall spirit is a lot like how my Read-a-thons usually end up. Her post is also really funny; go read it! And then, enjoy the rest of your Read-a-thon! :-)<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-44575983696475325872011-10-15T18:33:00.000-05:002011-10-15T18:33:05.569-05:00My review of The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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From the <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/book.aspx?isbn=9780312602796">publisher’s website</a>:
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<i>In the final weeks of the Weimar Republic, as Hitler and his National Socialist party angle to assume control of Germany, beautiful girls are seen sleepwalking through the streets. Then, a young woman of mysterious origin, with her legs bizarrely deformed, is pulled dead from the Havel River. Willi Kraus, a high ranking detective in Berlin's police force, begins a murder investigation. A decorated World War I hero and the nation's most famous detective, Willi also is a Jew. Despite his elite status in the criminal police, he is disturbed by the direction Germany is taking. Working urgently to solve the murder, Willi finds his superiors diverting him at every turn. As he moves through darkness closer to the truth, Willi begins to understand that much more than the solution to a murder is at stake. What he discovers will mean that his life, the lives of his friends and family, and Germany itself will never be the same.</i><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnWyMPro15dXxziDEuVFUhgLx_pDliZDhPHwzfTlz-9EavU0lvHMdRfCm9r4Kdg67jMr2PdZGlfSjn1lNkSMS2gMiMiieCWRTXh0fSBUZzx1RomHOCoNgi1Uzna_VGlBFmpG4M5kWUQYQ/s1600/Shadow+Wind.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnWyMPro15dXxziDEuVFUhgLx_pDliZDhPHwzfTlz-9EavU0lvHMdRfCm9r4Kdg67jMr2PdZGlfSjn1lNkSMS2gMiMiieCWRTXh0fSBUZzx1RomHOCoNgi1Uzna_VGlBFmpG4M5kWUQYQ/s200/Shadow+Wind.jpg" width="126" /></a><br />
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(First, an admission: when I saw this book on LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers list, I was drawn to it because the cover reminded me of my copy of <i>The Shadow of the Wind</i>. The description intrigued me, and that’s why I requested it, but it was the cover that initially grabbed me. Do you see a small resemblance too?)<br />
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The story begins in November 1932, when the body of an unknown woman is pulled from a river, and Willi Kraus is assigned to the case. However, in chapter three, Willi receives orders to find the daughter of the king of Bulgaria, who came to Berlin with her husband a few days before and has since disappeared. Willi doesn’t investigate missing person cases – he’s a homicide detective – but President von Hindenburg wants to assure the Bulgarian ruler that Germany’s best Inspektor-Detektiv is searching for the princess. Fortunately, Willi’s junior apprentice, Gunther, is dedicated and very bright, and he’s able to continue digging for evidence in the murder case while Willi tries to find the princess.<br />
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As Willi and Gunther investigate the two crimes, they find a few similarities between them – for instance, the body was found in Spandau, and the princess was last seen alive in the same area. They also find hints that both cases might be part of a larger plot: a number of people, mostly young women, who had appeared to be sleepwalking and then went missing; evacuations of dozens of people from a state hospital, with no record of where they’d been taken; and the fact that several of the missing persons had been linked with a hypnotist called the Great Gustave. All of this takes place while the German government is in turmoil, and the Nazi Party is gaining strength. Willi begins to fear for the safety of his sons and the rest of his family, and eventually for his own life. It’s difficult to know who’s telling the truth, who can be trusted.<br />
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Paul Grossman is a great storyteller, and the pacing in <i>The Sleepwalkers</i> is excellent. From the very first chapter, the wheels are in motion: characters introduced and gradually revealed, crimes to be investigated, and pieces of evidence located and examined. Through all this, the tentacles of the Nazi Party stretch further and further over everything in the story. Grossman weaves the elements together in ways that make sense, and keep the reader engaged.<br />
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<i>The Sleepwalkers</i> is definitely a thriller, but more a psychological thriller than an action story. It’s much more than a murder mystery, and not a “typical” historical novel. I’d call it a historical thriller: some of the characters, places, and plot details are fictional, but the backdrop of the Nazi Party’s machinations and the increasing horror uncovered by Willi and his allies is, sadly, based on fact. In a note at the end of the book, Grossman indicates which parts of the story are true, but adds that most of the incidents occurred several years later than the timeline in his book.<br />
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Given the difficult subject matter and disturbing events and imagery, <i>The Sleepwalkers</i> isn’t suitable for everyone. That said, it’s an intelligent, entertaining, sexy, scary, and thought-provoking novel. Highly recommended.<br />
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I received a paperback copy of this book from the publisher, <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/SMP.aspx">St. Martin’s Griffin</a>, through the <a href="http://www.librarything.com/">LibraryThing</a> <a href="http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/HelpThing:Er_list">Early Reviewers</a> program. I appreciate the opportunity to review this book, and hope that LT helps it to reach a wider audience.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-48707108158380782162011-09-24T00:10:00.001-05:002011-09-24T00:10:00.904-05:00The haul from this year's book sale!<div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6ZgDcxVUG-F8aVcsWYN1JCFjIPEAY-2AVDVgDy6cOQKlzHqmqRsOCBNAvHGRNJC_NL5HbxYQL2FOBXycsT60HSSmYVLlOSZHzMytbTxib1vAd3e0n1EByZxV2LDy06o53k6Lvb9Sy5M/s1600/book+sale+2011.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px; height: 267px; text-align: center; display: block; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655786363410205890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ6ZgDcxVUG-F8aVcsWYN1JCFjIPEAY-2AVDVgDy6cOQKlzHqmqRsOCBNAvHGRNJC_NL5HbxYQL2FOBXycsT60HSSmYVLlOSZHzMytbTxib1vAd3e0n1EByZxV2LDy06o53k6Lvb9Sy5M/s400/book+sale+2011.JPG" /></a><br /><br />It's been a <b>full week</b> since Friends Night at the annual <a href="http://www.tscpl.org">TSCPL</a> book sale, and I'm only NOW able to post about it, although I took the photo and entered everything into my <a href="http://www.librarything.com">LibraryThing</a> catalog last Saturday. Life is just too damn busy. Also, when I DO have some free time, I usually choose to read rather than blog ... and of course I can read in bed with a booklight before I go to sleep, and it would be much more difficult to write a blog post in that same position and situation. But, I digress.<br /><br />The book sale was great, and I found a bunch of books that look really good, including a few that had caught my eye several times in the past, and I finally went ahead and bought them - such as <i>Little Children</i>, <i>Say You're One of Them</i>, and <i>Bird by Bird</i>. But Saturday, amazingly, I said to Jeff, "I think I might have too many books, I guess I should get rid of some of them." And then I started clearing out some books -- not too many, but a small pile or two! I was able to make room for some of my new acquisitions, but I still have maybe half of them to put away.<br /><br />Even though I found good stuff, I didn't have the same euphoria at the sale this year that I've had in most prior years. Yet I was able to spend more than I'd expected to: after paying my $52.00, I literally had <b>one</b> dollar bill and a bunch of change in my wallet, and that was all. In my defense, I have to say that every item I got was $2.00, because I didn't even go near the mass market paperbacks which were only $1.00 each. Also, four of the books I got are for my mother-in-law. (Those aren't in the picture.) So my item total was 19 print books (some hardcover, some trade size paperbacks) and three audiobooks -- all of them only $2.00 each, and if you think of it from that perspective, it's quite amazing! No, I didn't get any books for the boys, but darn it, a few of them are YA and they might like them someday when they're older. Having read and loved <i>King Dork</i>, I'm psyched to have the audio of <i>Andromeda Klein</i>, and when my boys are older teenagers, I hope they might read and enjoy them both, because Frank Portman is completely hysterical!<br /><br />So many things I want to write about lately, and as I said, never enough time or energy. I wrote a few pages in my notebook last night, might scan and post that later, but otherwise, I've just been reading and thinking, in between all the time working and being mom and cleaning house and just getting by. Next on the list: getting to bed, since it's midnight. But check out that photo again; man, I got some really good stuff. :-D</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5392290704681873070.post-31151856098736008582011-08-13T15:50:00.004-05:002011-08-13T16:09:06.223-05:00Journal entry for August 6One week ago, August 6, was my first time taking part in an event called <a href="http://dnbrd.org/">Do Nothing But Read Day</a>. Sounds right up my alley, right? Of course it is. But sometime during the afternoon, my mood took an extreme downward turn. Later in the evening, after a nap, I tried to capture my thoughts with pen and paper. The results are in the photos below.
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQfRx3HR0OJiPHej89W1z4yGmYO9VR4ambfXQ_rBysV8AfVXtxHea5dfH9g662UKYAtQwCbZ7FcJ6YbYSrWEM1Um94zVN2wMaen0q32aG6nwOPFRjqjwbTItaQ0WVwiQ3_WymaAjKcH8/s1600/20110806+p1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 275px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuQfRx3HR0OJiPHej89W1z4yGmYO9VR4ambfXQ_rBysV8AfVXtxHea5dfH9g662UKYAtQwCbZ7FcJ6YbYSrWEM1Um94zVN2wMaen0q32aG6nwOPFRjqjwbTItaQ0WVwiQ3_WymaAjKcH8/s400/20110806+p1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640450222228069490" /></a>
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEX91_m4lbYlLPp_yOS5t40d7j9dYrqcF3rkv9V4FnEzaTgqNfWDYczlh0bfO06a6WqkmamT0mxTJSHmlxLQDX5cAX7AVgLxr0QoDl5i7H6EQtDcKnJWSqTbAHXDI9xZarVuYRjImoFY/s1600/20110806+p2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 313px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYEX91_m4lbYlLPp_yOS5t40d7j9dYrqcF3rkv9V4FnEzaTgqNfWDYczlh0bfO06a6WqkmamT0mxTJSHmlxLQDX5cAX7AVgLxr0QoDl5i7H6EQtDcKnJWSqTbAHXDI9xZarVuYRjImoFY/s400/20110806+p2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640442647625734578" /></a>
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1FkcoPJ9O8jEQKlRQ4PkAGaO0r-Kg05rYKWYRG64lPqjUFOiHsek34xb2ZKnWAqAj3G3TLU2LPjRjhr87KrDRbXBvYnRyGTQ9Ho9HZXOHr7gpMbUj7yFKzjsVk6HfJGx40wpd8-l9tlc/s1600/20110806+p4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 171px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1FkcoPJ9O8jEQKlRQ4PkAGaO0r-Kg05rYKWYRG64lPqjUFOiHsek34xb2ZKnWAqAj3G3TLU2LPjRjhr87KrDRbXBvYnRyGTQ9Ho9HZXOHr7gpMbUj7yFKzjsVk6HfJGx40wpd8-l9tlc/s400/20110806+p4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5640449924995754370" /></a>
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<br />I hope to continue using my new journal to keep my writing hand in shape. ;-) I plan to post more pages from it on here if/when I can.<div class="blogger-post-footer">
© All the parts of my life 2008-2015.</div>HeathMochaFrosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09171967251746524692noreply@blogger.com0