12.28.2013

Books

By my record keeping, I've read about 3 books per month in 2013.  This does not include the hours & hours I've spent reading Harry Potter & Percy Jackson books to the boy.  We finished all 5 Jackson books and really loved them.  I've been in a reading rut the past few months-- I even have piles of unread New Yorkers laying around.  Here's to going new places in 2014!


"Transatlantic" Colum McCann


“They were pouring down their winnowed bitterness, and in his silence he just kept thrashing, spluttering, pushing the words away.  A refusal to drown.  What nobody noticed, not even himself, was that the grain kept rising, and the silo filled, but he kept rising with it, and the sounds grew different, word upon word, falling around him, building beneath him.  And now-at the top of the silo- he has clawed himself up and dusted himself off and he stands there equal with the pourers who are astounded by the language that lies below them.  They glance at each other.  Three ways down…They can fall into the grain and drown, they can jump off the edge and abandon it, or they can learn to sow it very slowly at their feet.”

11.07.2013

"Sun Storm" Asa Larsson

"I really haven't got anything to complain about, she thinks, turning to someone out there in the universe.  A wonderful family and a good life.  I've already had more that anyone has a right to ask for.  "Thank you," she says out loud."

(I'm attempting to read all of Larsson's books; there will be several more posts.)

10.24.2013

"Until Thy Wrath Be Past" Asa Larsson

"He tried to convince himself that love is about giving, not taking.  It should be okay to simply be a giver.  To love without expecting anything in return.  But he finds that difficult.  He wants her.  He wants her for himself.  'I think I love her,' he says to Tintin. 'How the hell did that happen?'"

I've discovered that I'm on a Scandinavian Kick, and Asa Larsson is a great writer.  The library has requested her other books for me on inter-library loan. 

"Blackwater" Kerstin Ekman

"He decided to ask some people to dinner because he realized he was drifting into something he would have jokingly diagnosed as paranoia in anyone else."

"He himself could not have borne to see Annie.  But he had to.  And, he thought to himself afterward, 'bear' is an empty word.  Just a kind of exclamation.  You bear it.  You put two fingers on what has happened and feel it."

"It's true I walk in the forest every day and I am the only woman here who goes walking outside the berry-picking season.  And who dares to walk alone.  But that does not make me feel at home in the forest.  I think the timber company's men or the Brandberg men on their road-making machines feel much more at home. I walk her as Rosseau did in the woods of St. Germain, dazed by fantasies, scents, and visions of beauty.  The point is, my visions are the opposite of the civilization I live in.  I'm seeking an alternative...You know quite a few bachelors and lumberjacks have ended up like him in a cabin or surplus company hut...The difference between the loner in his cabin and me is that I always go back to school on Monday morning.  I know my attempts at finding an alternative are imperfect, and that my job is to teach schoolchildren to think."  (pg 343-344)

The above is from a long passage that is one of the most beautiful passages I have ever read, and something we should all discover.

10.07.2013

"Say Nice Things About Detroit" Scott Lasser

" "Look," he said, "I've got a white family, and I've got a black family, so I can tell you this:  black people are pretty much like white people, except for one thing- black people got to deal with white people.  And that changes you." "

10.03.2013

"The Interestings" By Meg Wolitzer

“Part of the beauty of love was that you didn’t need to explain it to anyone else. You could refuse to explain. With love, apparently you didn’t necessarily feel the need to explain anything at all.”

-Had to quickly return this book to the library, but really enjoyed it. 

9.16.2013

"A Constellation of Vital Phenomena" By Anthony Marra


""You're here," Sonja said, surprised.  "Yes," Havaa agreed.  "I'm here.  This is the waiting room."  Sonja glanced down to the floor, to the chairs, puzzling over this and then nodding.  "You're right.  This is the waiting room," she said, and sat in the folding chair beside Havaa.""

9.06.2013

"We Need New Names" NoViolet Bulawayo

"Come, Ethiopia, move, move, move; Israel, Kazakhstan, Niger, brothers, let's go!  The others spoke languages, worshiped different gods, ate what we would not dare touch.  But like us, they had left their homelands behind.  They flipped open their wallets to show us faded photographs of mothers whose faces bore the same creases of worry as our very own mothers, siblings bleak-eyed with dreams unfilled like those of our own, fathers forlorn and defeated like ours.  We had never seen their countries buy we knew about everything in those pictures; we were not altogether strangers."

As an aside:  A well-written & good read, but seemed, perhaps, over-worked.  Every piece of "African plight" seemed contained in these pages (which may be how it is in Zimbabwe), and ended up not really saying enough about any of it.  Also, the main character illegally immigrates to the US, and all I could think was, "This is why his dad couldn't be here when he was born.  Why he wasn't given a tourist visa.  The choice of the one affects many. 

8.30.2013

"The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells" Andrew Sean Greer

Quick read, no dog-ear quotes

"Good Kids" Benjamin Nugent

"Only now did I realize that I had probably been looking as tense as she did.  The words, 'I'm Republican' had triggered a fight-or-flight instinct.  The knowledge that somebody who was even sort of a Republican might kiss me was enchanting and noxious at the same time, cocaine-like."

8.13.2013

"Elders" Ryan McIlvain"

"Seth, there's nothing special about doubting.  Some of my colleagues at the office are devout atheists...they go on and on about the 'courage to question.'  But do you know what I think?  I think the real courage is in trying to believe.  Doubt comes easy for a lot of people.  It comes easy for people like you and me, Seth.  But do you know what doesn't come easy?  Faith.  Faithfulness.  Obedience.  Humility.  Self-denial.  Self-sacrifice.  There's your courage.  It's not easy to confirm your life to a worldview that makes demands, that is not morally relative...There's your courage."

For the Boy

"There is a mystery surrounding this man who is so central to my life in so many ways, but who I'll never know."  (Maybe from a New Yorker article??)

8.09.2013

"The Middlesteins" Jami Attenberg

"And finally, she doesn't always love being a stay-at home mom, but the other option, dealing with bosses and responsibilities and meetings in poorly lit rooms and office politics and all that other crap that Benny goes through on a daily  basis, sounds so appalling that she will gladly gush, "This is what I was born to do," to anyone who might ask...even if she suspects there might have been another option, if only she had not let Benny just put it in for a second because it felt so good and never made him take it out again before it was too late."

7.30.2013

"This is Life" Dan Rhodes

Just now realized that this was written by a man-- surprising!  This is a happy, feel-good, suspended from reality story that I enjoyed.

"She loved that place, and had never felt claustrophobic...now she was glad to have somewhere she could keep to herself, uninterrupted by the drama of the shared living space.  She loved never having to justify her movements or her lack of movements to anyone else."

"Prayers for Rain" Dennis Lehane

A few weeks ago, I was in Chicago and had an afternoon all to myself.  This resulted in a visit to CBO, a few other shops, and of course the bookstore, where I picked up this book.  I hadn't read any of Lehane's books, but while this was violent & bit unbelievable, I still enjoyed it.  This passage is for the man who's love of Mustangs, I don't understand, but appreciate a little bit better now...

"I pulled the cover off the car and almost gasped.  The 1968 Shelby Mustang GT-500 is to American automobiles what Shakespeare is to literature and the Marx Brothers are to comedy- that is to say, everything that came before was, in retrospect, a teaser, and everything that came after could never live up to the standard of perfection achieved in one brief blink of time...'I'm sorry,' I told the engine."

7.16.2013

"The Liar's Gospel" Naomi Alderman

Must like reading the Bible, I got about halfway through, decided it was a silly story and put it down.

"The House at the End of Hope Street" Menna van Praag

"When she'd walked into the house, long after midnight, she'd felt the presence of Blake, so sharp and strong that it had driven her straight to her clothes.  Now he won't leave her: his smile, his touch, his unreachable heart."

7.09.2013

"A Thousand Pardons" Jonathan Dee

"'We have to think in terms of storytelling,' she said.  'Imagine how you want the customers to think of you, say two months from now.  Then we tell the story that leads to that place.  If it's a story of our guilt, of our desire to make amends, if that's how it begins, then so be it.  You have to take the long view, even if it means making some sacrifices now in the service of that greater truth...People want to believe you did something wrong, though.  And if you keep denying what they believe, that just strengthens their suspicion.  But if you take upon yourself, if you just agree to own it, then they're yours, then you're the one making the choices that drive the story from that point forward.'"

"Helsinki Blood" James Thompson

I've read the other books in this series, and this one bordered on the ridiculous.  I wouldn't recommend it and sadly, no quotes. 

6.26.2013

"Eleanor and Park" Rainbow Rowell

"All through first and second and third hour, Eleanor rubbed her palm.  Nothing happened.  How could it be possible that there were that many nerve endings in one place?  And were they always there, or did they just flip on whenever they felt like it?  Because it they were always there, how did she manage to turn doorknobs without fainting?"

"He closed his eyes and saw her again.  A stack of freckled heart shapes, a perfectly made Dairy Queen ice cream cone.  Like Betty Boop drawn with a heavy hand...How could he even look at her now?  He wouldn't be able to.  Not without stripping her down to her gym suit.  Without thinking about that long white zipper.  Jesus."

-Loved this YA book

"Broken Harbor" Tana French

"Nights last longer, when you're outside on your own.  You get to thinking strange things.  I could see other lights, in other houses across the estate...I started thinking about all the other people living there.  All those different lives.  Even if they were just cooking dinner, one guy could be making his kid's favorite to cheer her up after a bad day at school, some couple could be celebrating finding out she was pregnant...Every one of them, making dinner out there, every one of them was thinking something all their own.  Loving someone all their own.  Every time I was up there, it hit me harder.  That kind of life:  it's beautiful, after all."

"The Dressmaker" Kate Alcott

Given to me by my SIL, left at the cottage as it's a perfect beach read.

"Beatrice and Virgil" Yann Martel

"Henry preferred the latter.  He liked the personal art of each writer's handwriting, some nearly robotic in appearance and ultra-legible, others jagged scrawls that nearly defined comprehension.  It always astonished him how twenty-six highly conventionalized glyphs could find such varied expressoin once a living hand set to write them down.  Was it Gertrude Stein who said language was alaphabet in disorder?"

This book had potential, but it just lacked something.

5.10.2013

"We Need to Talk about Kevin" By Lionel Shriver

This book was recommended to me by an acquaintance who I hoped would become a friend.  Although it's about a boy who commits an act of violence at school, I found it to be more of a love story to the narrators husband.  It's incredibly sad, yet somehow not.  

"I was destined to settle down with a string cerebral type whose skittering metabolism burns chickpea concoctions at a feocious rate...A strict vegetarian.  An anguished sort who read Nietzsche and wears spectacles, alienated from his time and contemptuous of the automobile.  An avid cyclist and hill walker.  Professional marginalia- perhaps a potter, with a love of hardwoods and herb gardens, whose aspirations to an unpretentious life of physical toil and lingering sunsets on a a porch are somewhat belied by a steely, repressed rage with which he pitches disappointing vases into an oil drum...Back massages.  Recycling.  Sitar music and a flirtation with Buddhism that is mercifully behind him.  Vitamins and cribbage, water filters and French films.  A pacifistic with three guitars but no tv, and unpleasant associations with team sports from a picked on childhood....An over-educated man, my fantasy partner would still root about the soil of our idyll for seed for his own discontent [of course in a foreign land].

Are you chuckling yet?  Because then you came along.  A big, broad meat eater with brash blond hair and ruddy skin that burns at the beach.  A bundle of appetites.  A full, boisterous guffaw; a man who tells knock-knock jokes.  Hot Dogs- not even East 86th Street bratwurst, but mealy, greasy pig guys of that terrifying pink.  Baseball.  Gimme caps.  Puns and blockbuster movies, raw tap water and six packs.  A fearless, trusting consumer who only reads labels to make sure there are plenty of additives.  A fan of the open road with a passion for his pickup who thinks bicycles are for nerds.  Fucks hard and talks dirty...Barbecues on the Fourth of July and intentions, in the fullness of time, to take up golf.  Delights in crappy snack foods of every description....And, my lord, a Republican. A belief in a strong defense but otherwise small government and low taxes...

But the biggest surprise of all was that I married an American."

4.30.2013

"Talking to the Dead" Harry Bingham

"Good night Fiona."  The gun is still on the kitchen table, and he pushes it toward me.  He knows that I'll be sleeping with it.  "If you get into a situation, remember you have trauma.  Your instinct will tell you to do too much or too little.  Both are bad.  Use your head, not this."  He points to his heart.
I nod.  I know what he means.  I've got a slogan for it.  "Fuck feelings, trust reason," I say."

4.14.2013

"Raising Boys without Men" Peggy Drexler

"We live in a culture where we want mothers to do everything and whenever something goes wrong, it's the mother's fault," Mary Becker told the NYT."

"The maverick mother's sons I studied, clearly showed that a boy's morality and masculinity could be cultivated without a live-in father.  I found there were no differences in the boys in terms of their conceptions about what they considered fair or their reasoning about moral issues."

"I have come to take a stand against the recent tide of opinion and the rash of books asserting that boys must have a father in the home to in order to to grow to full manhood.  Instead, I have found that loving, growth-encouraging parenting is what boys need.  A good parent, whether mother or father, will enable a boy to develop to his full potential as a young man, as long as his individuality, his manliness, his courage, and his developing conscience are respectfully and and fully supported."


"Listening for Madeleine" Leonard Marcus

Despite sometimes long narratives by friends, it her own words that spoke to me in this book:
"My books are not bad books to die with...What I mean is that when you read a book, if it makes me feel more alive, then it's a good book to die with."

Also, this description:  "For most of her adult life, Madeleine L'Engle enjoyed a stage actor's fine powers of recall and too casual pride in the manner of well-read men and women of own and earlier generations, in seasoning her writing and conversation with lines from the immortals."

3.17.2013

"The Viper" Hakan Ostlund

"He lived some kind of pretend life steered if not by lies, then at least a stubborn refusal to look life right in the eyes.  It was easily done, it was comfortable and human, she knew that, but if you make a habit out of always directing your gaze a little to the side, life starts to become a little fuzzy around the edges.  And she didn't want to see him like that, meekly, carving out a shapeless life."

"The Blood Sugar Solution" Mark Hyman

Heard Hyman on the radio & picked up the book. Good reminders: 
At a mealtime- "Take 'Five' before a meal...Just take five breaths in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. Slowly count to five on each in-breath and again on each out breath...Offer gratitude before the meal...Just offering thanks is a powerful activity that will change your relationship to food...Bring your attention fully to the food." 

"After every meal or snack, do the following: 
-Write down what you ate in as much detail as possible. 
-Think about how this meal or snack made you feel. 
-Every evening think about how your experience with food impacted your day"

2.17.2013

"The Keeper of Lost Causes" Jussi Alder-Olsen

"She'd been lying on the floor thinking about books.  That was something she often did in order not to think about the life she might have had if only she'd made different choices.  When she thought about books, she could move into a whole different world.  Just remembering the feeling of the dry surface and inexplicable roughness of the paper could ignite a blaze of yearning inside of her.  The scent of evaporated cellulose and printer's ink.  Thousands of time now she'd sent her thoughts into her imaginary library and selected the only book in the world that she knew she could recall without embellishing it.  It was not the one she wanted to remember, not even the one that had made the greatest impression on her.  But it was the only book that had remained completely intact in her tortured memory because of the liberating bursts of laughter she associated with it."

2.16.2013

"Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?" Rhoda Janzen

"People always ask where God is in the midst of suffering.  To me it's a strange question.  When you go blind, when a neighbor kills your son, when you come down with a spanking case of cancer, God is in exactly the same place where he always is.  He's where you put him.  The thing about liberum arbitrium, free will, is that God respects our right to choose.  Do we want to connect with him, or do we want to live a life without him?  We get to pick.  If in the midst of suffering, we call on God to sustain us, then that's where God will be.  If, on the other hand, we choose to weather life's storms without seeking God's presence, we can do that."

"Seven Houses in France" Bernardo Atxaga

"Yes, the Lord moves in mysterious ways.  He gives us vigor and then punishes us for having it,' he said, as if still pondering the matter.  A mischievous smile appeared on his face.  'However, I think in our case, there is a solution, and I'll tell you what that is, Chrystome.  The solution lies in...pollutio.  Continue along that path."

-A strange quote, but one that builds upon the root of this Spanish story, translated by Margaret Jull Costa.

2.04.2013

"The Underground Church" Robin Meyers

Made it about half-way through.  In my opinion, too many references to other people's ideas and not enough of his own.  Felt like reading an undergrad term paper-- believing in a partially formulated idea and not able to express it fully.

"At the Jim Bridge" Ron Carlson




"The Shadow Girls" Henning Mankell

"Perhaps I should be more concerned about these girls and what they have told me.  But isn't what they have told me also something that is as much about me?"

Mr. Mankell is currently one of my favorite authors, however I didn't really like this book.  I almost put it down, but was hoping to discover something that ended up not being there.

1.25.2013

"The Likeness" Tana French

"Our entire society's based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything.  Taking it for granted that that's the whole point of life, never to be satisfied.  If you're perfectly happy with what you've got- specially if what you've got isn't even all that spectacular- then you're dangerous.  You're breaking all the rules, you're undermining the sacred economy, you're challenging every assumption that society's build on."

1.14.2013

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan

"He paused, then added, 'Some of them are working very hard indeed.'  'What are they doing?'  'My boy!' he said, eyebrows raised.  As if nothing could be more obvious:  'They are reading."

"Your life must be an open city, with all sorts of ways to wander."

The Blood Split, Asa Larsson

"It's remarkable.  The whole summer has been a list of things to do.  One by one she's ticked them off.  Tears weren't on the list.  They put themselves there.  She didn't want them.  She's afraid of them.  Afraid of drowning in them.

And when they came.  At first they were horrible, and an unbearable torment, darkness.  But then.  Then the tears became a refuge.  A place to rest.  A waiting room before the next thing on the list.  Then a part of her suddenly wanted to stay there among the tears.  Put off the other thing which is going to happen.  And then the tears leave her.  Say:  that's it, then.  And just stop."