The Hearts Have It

It has taken me awhile to read and to get back to writing about it, but I have read a couple of really great books that were thought provoking and very enjoyable. Summer activities have taken me outside and have kept me busy as they should but I have been able to sneak in a few pages here and there and have used Oliver's nap time as an excuse to curl up with a good book a few times. These days it is with lemonade not hot chocolate, however. So onto the books.

The book club girls and I chose to read Carson McCullers' "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" last meeting. You can see from the book cover that this book may not be so happy, but this is an anniversary cover and is actually a photo of the author. I think it really shows a little window into an author's life because, unfortunately, I feel that most profound authors are a brooding bunch and have some major personal issues. This is also what probably makes them interesting and able to escape reality to put words onto paper in such a distinct manner. Hmmm to envy or not to envy.

McCullers is a Georgia author from Columbus and this book is set in this area without giving exact geographic location. I find it phenomenal that she was only twenty-three when she wrote this wonderful book and she deserves all the praise that litters the back of her book. The best "back of book quote" comes from Mary Sarton. She writes "When one puts [this book] down, it is with... a feeling of having been nourished by the truth." I read that sentence before I read the book and wondered what it was driving at and now that I am finished I think it is a perfect statement.

McCullars finds a gripping and interesting way to tell the story of a number of characters lives. They are all unique and all serve a purpose to get to a defining end which for better or worse is definitely truth. So well thought out are the characters and how interested you become in their well being. It is everything you could ask for in a book. This book is about social class, race, and generally the human species and our ability to survive together. Amazing book. I am for sure going to partake in McCullers other novels when I've finished up this project. (That may be years from now, but I WILL be reading more of her stuff.)

When the book club met in July, I was the only one who had finished the book because, well, I think we are all getting caught up in our summer activities but the girls said they were definitely going to finish it. So maybe I will be able to share there insights when we meet again.

I also just finished Graham Greene's "The Heart of the Matter." While these books both have the word HEART in the title and are both set in the 1940's they are extremely different. They both refer to The War but McCullars is looking at it from the "far away thing that is happening over there" point of view of small town America and Greene is looking at it as the reason his characters have a job to do in West Africa. (Both do not like the Germans...)

Greene's book tells the story of a distinguished police officer who has made his life and career in West Africa. His wife can't stand to be there anymore and can not figure out why her husband hasn't had enough of the place. He won't leave even when he has the chance to. But all that is back story but eludes to the meat of the book. It is all about love and what that really is and how it works when you are of devote Catholic faith.

Scobie, the police officer, falls so deeply that he doesn't really even know if it is love. In his mind, the feeling of being responsible for making someone happy means love and he can not stand to not meet his responsibilities. This book has such a different look at what love could be. The way this man deals with it is just utterly tragic. It makes this book thought provoking in the fact that it is like nothing else I have read on the subject and the fact that it is completely believable makes it all the more a worthwhile read.

On to the new stuff, The book club chose to read "The Sheltering Sky," by Paul Bowles. This is a post WWII book set in North Africa. (This is becoming a theme! I now know what type of book I need to write to get on a "Best" list.) This book is suppose to be about marital woes and traveling debacles so it should be interesting. I've only read the first 10 pages so we'll see where it goes from there.

Happy Reading!

Expatriates and Spies

This months book club book was The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. The girls and I were excited to read this as none of us had ever really read any Hemingway before. We figured now is the time and why not read the one that Time labels as a top book of all time. Unfortunately, I don't think any of us thought this was a super book by any means. I spent most of the time waiting for something to happen or to have some epiphany as to why this book and Hemingway are considered so great.

This book is suppose to "encapsulate the angst of the post-World War I generation" but it rarely spoke of war or other problems other than basic money problems. To me this book read like a sophisticated college road trip log. It details a journey with friends that begins in Paris and ends in Spain. The problem is that is it. That is what the book is in a nutshell. It gives street names that they pass, restaurant names that they eat in, and bars that they stay too long in. The love interest is every ones love interest, (Who hasn't had a trip where "the slutty girl" tags along) but you would think this would bring a lot of drama. Too bad it is downplayed and considered normal by the narrator. Really the only way I got through this book was when I decided to change my mind set and made believe that I was a man reading this story. I know that sounds weird but it worked and made the fishing expedition scenes and the details of Pamplona's bull fighting interesting and worth the read. Maybe Hemingway is a mans man writer, I don't know. (my husband loved The Old Man and the Sea) Once I left my emotions for the characters out the door and knew I wasn't going to be invested in them on a highly personal level the outlying story became much more available to me and let me enjoy the scenery and location. So while this book wasn't my ideal page turner I'm glad I read it and will definitely check out Hemingway's other works. ...but it may be awhile.



The other book I read this month is The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le Carre. This book took awhile for me to get into as well, but that was mostly because I usually read this right before going to bed and I would fall asleep after 2 paragraphs. The next night I would re-read and fall asleep again. Vicious Cycle. Anyway, I thought this book was excellent once I really got into it and I am not a spy book lover by any means but I definitely am going to read more by this author. He sets up this complicated half informed scene and you just have to trust it and go with it. When it all comes to a head you are completely blown away at how all the pieces come together in no way that you thought they would. It is smartly written. Their is a scene that I just can't get out of my head. It is a life or death situation and the characters are having this intense discussion that includes political and social views and the ideology that supports it or negates it. It is incredible. And the end, well you will just have to read the end. Beautiful in the most ugly way.

Well that is it for this month. I've started reading Carson McCullar's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter for book club next month. She is a renowned Georgia author and I'm already into the book and am excited to see where it goes. I haven't decided what else I will read this month, but whatever it is I'm sure it will be interesting.

Happy Reading!

For the Love of ...Books

I'm just going to jump into it. I finished reading The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thorton Wilder and I'm still thinking about it and can't get it out of my head. I don't know if I actually understood everything that I read or all of the understated undercurrents that take place in the book. What I do know is that almost every sentence is an eloquent well thought out construct of words that you can feel the beauty of even if you don't quite get the actual meaning. I know this sounds horrible, like, "You don't get it but you like it? Well Yes, exactly. I'm willing to accept that this book was a little over my head, but I also know that I'm going to read it again, probably when I'm 40. Maybe I'll be mature by then?!
Completely randomly this book was brought up while I was listening to RadioLab on NPR one night. (I must really like RadioLab, this is the third time this week it has come up in conversation. It is a science and medical commentary that is very smart and engaging. Check out their podcasts at RadioLab.org) This particular story was about a college girl who was in a horrific accident. She was hit by a truck and was so badly damaged that they had to pile her intestines outside of her body to alleviate the pressure on her body. Sad scary stuff. There is interesting back story but the premise is that nobody thought she would make it or recover except her boyfriend. She made it. She stabilized but she was non-reactive but sometimes violent and was considered a vegetable that was blind and deaf (she was deaf before the accident). She could breath on her own and could be fed through a tube but the decision her parents now faced was to put her in a home (institution) or a recovery center. Her mother reflects on the situation by referring to The Bridge of San Luis Rey and how she read it with her daughter and how it was speaking to her now especially the last sentence. "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." With her daughter at death's doorstep and her acceptance of her daughter's future brought out by this passage, a door opened for me and the meaning and absolute beauty of this book was revealed. (somewhat) That really shows that the more you read and know the more able you to grasp and find understanding of the world around you. (This is my mantra for reading with Oliver and all children. It is SO important) ...and the girl. With the pure devotion and a never giving up attitude by her boyfriend, he was able to find out that somewhere inside his girlfriend's damaged body SHE was still there. He used techniques that Helen Keller's teacher used and was able to "write" on her wrist to communicate with her and she was sent to the recovery center instead of the home.














This month I also read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro for the book club. This book infuriated me because it seemed like the easy answer to everyone's doomed destiny was staring them in the face yet it was never talked about or thought about in the book. This seemed to me to be a gross oversight by the author. While the book does bring up some interesting questions on how far science should go, I feel so much was left out that I can't figure out why the book was even on the Time 100 list at all. These may be harsh words as I thoroughly enjoyed discussing this book with the book club members and thought there insights were helping me see the value of this book. However, this was a character driven book and I cared for none of the characters. Aha!, but is that the point of the book, is it so deep that my distance and unhappy feelings towards the characters is the intended reaction? I think that would be giving the author way too much credit. Good book to discuss not so great to read. Read for yourself, then we'll talk!

And finally, I finished a book that is not on the list but was for my own pure enjoyment. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. Horrible title, great book. She nails the local food movement and what it takes to be a mostly self-sufficient farmer. This is a year of food life and what her family does to eat with in a 100 mile radius. I loved the farm parts and the cooking parts, some areas got too preachy and her "true" environmentalist crazy came out several times. (I call it crazy, but they are issues she is passionate about that I think go above and beyond what a "normal" person would consider to be actually doable and sustainable) I liked this book so much that I actually have two copies on reserve for me at The Book Stop. (picking them up today so don't think you can steal them!) I am giving them to friends who I think would enjoy this type of reading as well. My take aways for the book include really, I mean really looking, at where my produce comes from at the supermarket and making buying decisions based on that (I'm not ready to give up bananas just yet), my determination to hit the farmer's market every Saturday I can, and to have Pizza Fridays at the house, just like she does with her family. ...starting with homemade dough. A delicious and thought-provoking book that was a perfect read while I was planning and planting my garden. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Bill.

So next month will bring a review of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre and next month's book club read The Sun Also Rises by Earnest Hemingway. (I feel so literary!) Plus finds at the Smyrna Library book sale.

Book Club and Book Buying

Hey there! So, I'm going to get myself up to speed and then talk about how the second hand book buying is going.

In February, I met up with the new book club members and discussed "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. Thank goodness Laura downloaded some "book club questions" otherwise I think we all would have just said we enjoyed the book and went on to talk about our kids. We will have to try to do that for all the books. The book was amazing. It brought you back to another era and really made you think about daily life and the trials and tribulations a lot of people faced. I enjoyed that the book was told by Scout at an older age looking back on the events, it showed the difference between what she thought was going on and what really went on now that she can have some distance from it. I think the book club is great, the veggie nachos and margaritas were really swell too! I love hearing different interpretations of the same passages. It is so good to hear a different point of view. I think we have a good group of people too. We all seem to be busy girls with a lot going on who want to still take the time to read a good book and have some me time. I can't think of anything better.












We decided to read "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger for this month. What a wonderful book. When I read this before I automatically sided with Holden and took his problems as my own. This time I had thoughts that he was just a spoiled rich kid who needed to "man up" and get with the program. Things change, points of view change as you get older. Boo Hoo Ho Hum, getting older sucks in a lot ways... But in the end I was cheering for Holden again and was moved by his want to be the actual "catcher in the rye." Also, that the ideal thing that would make him happy and whole was actually a misinterpretation of a song he had heard. So is life. Everybody needs a somebody to pull them out of a hole. I'm glad Holden found his.











I'm about halfway through "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" by Thorton Wilder This is a completely different type of book. I'm still trying to figure it out. It is intriguing and confusing at the same time. I'll let you know more when I figure it out.

So on to book buying! So far I have found every book I have read at The Book Stop in Smyrna. My own local second-hand store that I love. (Including "To Kill a Mockingbird" I couldn't believe it. There it was just sitting on the shelf after my whole diatribe about its scarcity!) I have recently started volunteering for The Smyrna Public Library through The Friends of Smyrna Public Library. My job is to look through all the donated books that the librarians cannot use for the library shelves and organize them and price them for the semi-annual book sales The Friends have for the library. The revenue this brings in is staggering. So my first day I was in complete shock as to what was being donated to the library. Almost new hardcovers of "famous" fluff-read (I mean fiction) authors. These are the books that cost 25 bucks new. I hold on to books at that price point but I guess I get it the more I think about it. The people who get great enjoyment out of the John Grishams, Nora Roberts', and Clive Cusslars of the world seem to have this drive to get the newest one as soon as it hits the shelves and then devour it in a day in a half. I can honestly say this is not my type of reading. I really thought I would be sorting through the old and obscure that nobody was thinking about anymore. These still exist in the donated books but not to the extent I thought. As a volunteer, I get first dibs on things that interest me so we'll see what comes out of this. In the meantime, I love books and love to see what people bring in and I'm helping out the library, so bonus for me!

This weekend was the Cobb County Public Library system's huge book sale and I scored big. I found "Herzog" by Saul Bellow, "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison and "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" by John Le Carre from the 100 list all for 25 cents a piece. Can you believe it? I picked up some other stuff too. Books for Oliver (all 25 cents a piece), some titles that just caught my eye, and a load of those famous author's books like I stated above for my mom, dad, and mother-in-law. People love them....

I have book club on the 15 of March and I can't wait to see what we decide to read next!

I'm blaming the holidays!

I haven't written in awhile and I have plenty of excuses, some of them are even pretty good, but I will spare you the drama. But I think it is covered thoroughly below. Since November I've been trying to get through "All the King's Men," but am literally still on page 82. I feel like I'm still waiting for the story to get started. Everything I have read (which is not a lot) has been build up, OK not really build up because that sounds like it would be interesting and suspenseful, let's say back story, Yes, back story for something. I don't know what that something is yet...

Since the book is slow I've used every excuse to put off reading it. Family's in town for the holidays. CHECK. A friend loaned me a book, I should read that first so I can give it back promptly. CHECK. This book is on sale on Amazon and looks really good. CHECK. I read a paragraph in "All the King's Men" and I fell asleep. CHECK. CHECK. Needless to say I was going nowhere. Then my friend, Laura, swoops in and and invites me to join a book club that is using the Time's 100 list as its book list. Wahoo, Perfect! They are starting with "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee, since most of the group has already read it and can do a comparison from what they thought when they read it in high school to how it is as an adult.

So I ran over to The Book Stop to find a copy and Ginny informs me that "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of the hardest books to find secondhand. I couldn't believe it. You would think with all the copies out there it would fill the shelves. She said it is common practice these days for teachers to tell their students to take notes in the book so it is almost impossible to find a clean copy. Who'd a thunk it? She hasn't had a copy in her store for the past 6 months. I got it at the Vinings Library (All of Smyrna Library's copies are overdue or lost), but I fully intend on finding a used local copy at some point for the collection!

I have to say this book is really good and the more I read the more I know I have never read this book before. Can you believe it? I know I saw the movie ages ago and I thought I had read it, but no. Growing up in North Dakota may have something to do with it? Teachers were more apt to pick titles about the prairie, fur-trapping, or extreme survival because that related to us more, maybe? Maybe my "too cool for school" attitude had something to do with it? I'm sure it was on many a reading list I received at one time or another, but my thought would have been "Everyone reads this book, I going to pick the most obscure, least known book on this list just to be different." Yep, I was that kid. Annoying sometimes...

Right now I'm cruising through "To Kill a Mockingbird" and am really enjoying it. More on it and the book club later. Thank you for getting me out of the funk, Laura!