Books I Read in 2009

Booking Through Thursday Question: What were your favorite books of the year?

I have a friend who is a poet and artist. Years ago she told me that when she had her son, she could no longer write or paint. So when I became pregnant I expected that I would stop writing for a time. What devastated me is that I actually stopped reading too. I can’t pinpoint the reason. It’s not that I didn’t have time, though I do obviously have much less of it. But it took months after my daughter was born this past May for me to actually start reading books again.

Happily I am back to reading and loving it (the challenge now is stopping my 7 month old from eating the books). Hopefully one day I can start writing again as well. In the meantime, here are a few of the best books I read in 2009 and a look toward 2010.

Fiction:
- Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison (heartbreaking, but beautiful)
- Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan (I always like Amy Tan)
- The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (I read this after becoming a mother and that made a big difference in how I felt about it)

Nonfiction:
- Live Through This by Debra Gwartney (Portland, OR local author)

Young Adult and Children’s:
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (this year’s well deserved Newbery winner)
- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
- Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale (I jumped on the Shannon Hale bandwagon—review to follow soon)
- Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins

I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions, but I don’t mind setting a few challenges for myself that are book related.

1) Finish reading all the Newbery Award Winning books (this has been a goal of mine for years now, and I’ve been stuck with a handful of particularly boring looking ones).

2) Read more local authors. I love to support local bookstores (it’s easy when you live near a Powell’s), but I’d like to seek out and read more local authors too.

3) I joined a challenge to read 100+ books in 2010. I fell far short of that in 2009, but if you don’t make the goal, you can’t get there.

Online Chapbook

A teacher and friend of mine from PSU and Ooligan Press just published an online chapbook of poems chronicling his weight loss. The poems are snapshots of his journey to finding the man behind the fat. I recommend this quick and entertaining read for anyone--whether you want to be inspired to your own weight loss goals or are in perfect physical shape. Click on the link below to be taken to his website where you can download the chapbook for free.

Tales of Contraction
by Vinnie Kinsella

Buy a Book, Give a Book

Review: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

“Misunderstanding a culture’s symbols is a common root of prejudice.” –Robert Langdon in The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

I used to be a book snob. Still am to some degree. As an English major, I felt I should only spend my time reading what I considered good literature—good story, good character development, and most important of all, good writing. Then I entered a graduate publishing program and realized that my English Lit background did me little good there. I may have known Faulkner, but Faulkner is dead and I had no idea what people were actually writing and publishing today. So I swallowed my pride and began venturing out into the world of popular fiction.

Today I finished reading Dan Brown’s latest thriller, The Lost Symbol. Having read and seen the movie versions of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, the common protagonist, Robert Langdon, was much more concrete in mind while reading his most current offering. In fact, Langdon was Tom Hanks. But there are far worse things than having a figure as comforting and familiar as Tom Hanks in your head for a few days.

The Lost Symbol is another strange mix of history, science, and religion, of fact and fantasy. The characters range from the fanatic to the realist, the scientist to the priest. My favorite character was Langdon’s newest female sidekick, Katherine Solomon. She’s beautiful and rich so you want to hate her, but she’s also real, smart, and ingenious, so you admire her.

Once again, one of Brown’s antagonists is an odd-looking man who likes to hang out naked (remember the albino?). Not titillating naked—scary naked. It made me wonder about Brown’s penchant for bad guys who walk around naked. But then, as an English major, I’m sure I could come up with some critical explanation for it. Let’s go with something about the villains hiding nothing about their evil natures from us.

It’s a lengthy novel, of course. And the resolution was a little long and redundant. It took fifty pages for Brown to wrap things up after the climax. Even in a book this long, that accounted for 10% of the book. I found myself skimming the end because I already knew what happened in the end (and that’s the point of a Dan Brown novel, finding out what happens next), and it was repeating a lot of the same ideas that had been presented throughout the book. But the chapters are short, and the narrative moves quickly, so it’s a fast read.

If you liked Brown’s other novels, The Lost Symbol will not disappoint. It’s full of twists and turns that range from predictable to surprising, but they’re all fun. Though he was a little melodramatic in some places (“The bowl contained one inch of thick crimson liquid. ... The liquid was _______’s blood.”), there was one major plot twist that I can honestly say I didn’t see coming. Of course, I can’t tell you about it or it would ruin the book.

The Lost Symbol is great escapist literature. And considering his popularity, a Dan Brown novel may one day grace the syllabus of an American Novels course.


The Lost Symbol
By Dan Brown
Doubleday, 2009
$29.95

Book Review: Yummy

Though I've never read Lucy Cousins's most well-known books starring a mouse named Maisy, I was intrigued by the title of her book of retold fairy tales. Yummy is an appropriate title for a book of fairy tales where something--or someone--is eaten in every story.

This collection features enduring classics like "Little Red Riding Hood" and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" as well as a couple that I didn't know as well like "The Enormous Turnip" and "The Musicians of Bremen." I was surprised when the first two pigs of "The Three Little Pigs" were simply eaten by the wolf, but the bluntness of Cousins's language made me laugh at the gruesomeness that always accompanies fairy tales that are true to the original.

My favorite lines in the book were from "The Three Billy Goats Gruff":

"Who's that stomping over my bridge?" roared the troll.

"It's me," said Big Billy Goat Gruff in his great big voice.

"I'm going to gobble you up," said the troll.

"Then I'll bash you to bits," said Big Billy Goat Gruff.

I loved the simple lines and bright colors of the illustrations, as well as the boldness and simplicity of the language in the retelling of these classic fairy tales. I would buy this book for myself, but am happy to have a daughter so I have an excuse to buy it and read it over and over again. With hundreds of collections of fairy tales to choose from, this one tops my list. Check it out for yourself--whether you have children or not.

Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales
by Lucy Cousins
Candlewick Press, 2009
$18.99

Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

There are a few authors whose new books I read no matter what—Margaret Atwood is one of them. So I picked up The Year of the Flood without reading any descriptions or reviews. I didn’t even read the inside flap before I read the book.

There seem to be a lot of post-apocalyptic movies and books coming out now, and Atwood’s version was pretty timely with the h1n1 scare. Her “flood” was a waterless flood—a pandemic that wipes out most of the human race. She follows the stories of two survivors and the events that led to their isolation when the sickness broke out and killed almost everyone else in the world.

Based on its title, The Year of the Flood, I was surprised at how little of the book was actually spent on the year of the flood. The flood was in year twenty-five by someone’s reckoning and much of the book was spent on the years leading up to it. The back story was interesting and much of it was needed to understand the characters during the year of the flood, but I expected more flood.

I often wonder if an established author’s later books would have been published if they were an unknown writer. I loved Vonnegut’s last book, even though it was the rantings of a cranky old man, because I loved Vonnegut himself. I wonder if I would have even finished Atwood’s latest book if it wasn’t Margaret Atwood.

My official opinion on The Year of the Flood: it was weird. Honestly, I don’t know what happened in the end. It just stopped. I wasn’t sure if Atwood meant for it to be hopeful or despairing. Maybe she was leaving it up to her readers to decide, but I wanted to know what she and her characters thought. If you’ve never read Margaret Atwood, don’t read this book. Start with The Handmaid’s Tale. And if you’re a Margaret Atwood fan, I guess you’re like me and you have to read The Year of the Flood. No matter how baffled it leaves you.

The Year of the Flood
By Margaret Atwood
Doubleday, 2009
$26.95

My List

When Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne Cash, told him that she wanted to be a country singer, he gave her a list of 100 essential songs to listen to as she began her career. An NPR article about her new album called “The List” asked readers to post a list of essential songs they would leave to their children.

I love music, but only in the way that everyone loves music. I am by no means a musician and have no great attachments to a list of songs. Some people I know would be appalled at this, but I listen to music for the words more than the tune. (Which is why I love Tori Amos, Dar Williams, and Ben Harper. Their songs tell stories.)

But I do have a list of literature that I want to pass down to my children. I could make my own top 100 list if I took the time, but that would really be self-indulgent. So here’s a list of the first few books that came to mind:

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
Complete Poems by Emily Dickinson
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Proof by David Auburn
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
Ariel by Sylvia Plath
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

I feel that these are all great works of literature. But more than that, I read them at a time when they deeply touched me and have stayed with me. It’s like a song that brings you back to a certain time or experience. I remember what was happening in my life when I read each of these books for the first time and how they carried me through the difficult times. Maybe I’ll take the time to write about my experiences with some of these books.

But for now, what interests me is: What’s on your “list”? Is it made up of books or songs or something completely different?

Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, is the story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob from the book of Genesis. Diamant’s story is so well-researched and beautifully written that I believed that this was Dinah’s voice.

For someone who grew up with the stories of the Bible told simply and with no questions of who the good guys and bad guys are, it was a little strange to alter the way I thought about the iconic Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But this is Dinah’s story, and I embraced it. I have never wanted a happy ending for any character as desperately as I did for Diamant’s Dinah.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone, but especially for women. It is a book about mothers and daughters and should be read by anyone who is a mother or a daughter.

Though I wish I’d known about this amazing book long ago, it would have been a completely different experience if I had read it before I was a mother myself. I look forward to reading it again and again at different times in my life to see what else I can get out of it.

The Red Tent
By Anita Diamant
Picador, 1997

The Birth of a Book

Almost two years ago, I sat down with poet Anne Jennings Paris to discuss her book. Today I opened my mailbox and found the finished book, bound and printed. I was introduced to some of these poems when they were only ideas. And now I have a tangible book to hold in my hands and read again and again. Words I looked at and scribbled over countless times are now beautifully printed on the page of a book. And one of those pages has a clean white space awaiting the author's signature at next week's book launch (Tuesday, October 20 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR).

Don't let the fact that this is a book of poetry scare you away. It's concrete poetry that tells a story--five stories, in fact. Part poetry, part historical fiction, Paris gives voice to voiceless historical figures from the well known (York, the slave of the Lewis and Clark Expedition) to the obscure but fascinating (Charity Lamb, Oregon's first convicted murderess). With a special emphasis on the Pacific Northwest, Killing George Washington opens windows into the history of America itself--frontiersmen, slaves, explorers, pioneers, immigrants, and architects.

I know these poems backward and forward, but I can't wait to read them again--to turn my editor's brain off and fully enjoy the beauty of the language and the power of the stories.

Killing George Washington: The American West in Five Voices
Anne Jennings Paris
Published by Ooligan Press
$13.95

Buy it at: Powell's Books or Amazon

Wordstock 2009 is Next Weekend

Yes, it’s as awesome and geeky as it sounds—a Woodstock for word people. With workshops for writers and teachers throughout the weekend, the book festival is being held Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The festival has over 200 exhibitor booths of publishers and other word people including: Ooligan Press, Powell’s Books, Indigo Editing, McSweeney’s, Tin House, Timber Press, and Willamette Writers. Throughout both days you can visit with and get books signed by many different authors from the Northwest and beyond. There’s even an interactive children’s corner, so it’s a great event for the whole family. At the Oregon Convention Center, tickets are only $5 a day (children 13 and under are free) and can be purchased at the door. Check it out at:

www.wordstockfestival.com

Writing Gender

I would never dream of writing from a man’s point of view. As a nonfiction writer, it’s hard for me to imagine writing from anyone’s point of view but my own.

William Faulkner’s novels include POVs from male and female characters alike. One of Flannery O’Connor’s most memorable characters is a very disturbed young man named Hazel Motes. When I taught English to teenaged boys, they were all surprised to learn that the author of The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton, is a woman. Memoirs of a Geisha was written by a white man.

I’ve been reading a great escapist series called the Thursday Next Novels by Jasper Fforde (check out www.thursdaynext.com). Fforde reimagines 1980s England where the world revolves around books. The hero of the novels is Thursday Next, a woman.

So how convincingly does this man write from a woman’s POV? He must have done something right, because I was well into the third novel before I even thought about the gender difference. But then I suddenly realized that Fforde’s female character was decidedly androgynous in my mind. I can picture some of the minor characters better than I can picture the heroine—and all of the characters I can easily picture are men. Thursday Next is a bit of a blank character in my mind, as much as I enjoy reading about her traveling in and out of beloved classic novels such as Jane Eyre.

That fact doesn’t really bother me. It’s only begun to trouble me now that Thursday is pregnant—and she continues to place herself in harm’s way through her job in defending literature. I may not have noticed this fact before I was ever pregnant. But as a pregnant woman, I was considerably more concerned for my safety even though the most dangerous activity I engaged in was driving a car.

I’m still going to finish the novels. They give me a great escape from real life. And I’ve long enjoyed many works of fiction that require a much stronger suspension of disbelief.

What do you think? Can a man write a convincing woman or vice versa? Have you ever tried to write a character of the opposite sex?

Celebrate Banned Books Week

“…the freedom to read is essential to our democracy, and reading is among our greatest freedoms…” from “Banned Books Week Proclamation”

Banned Books Week 2009 is September 26 – October 3. Celebrate by reading a banned book. Or just take a minute to consider why so many people try to dictate what you or I are allowed to read.

If you’ve never looked at any of the lists, you might be surprised to learn that some of the greatest books ever written have been banned or burned somewhere. One of my favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, is one of the most frequently banned books. Classics by Faulkner, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Orwell, and Vonnegut, to name a few, also grace this list. You may choose not to read these authors because they bore you, but no one should try to stop you from reading them. (Go ahead, read some Faulkner—I dare you.)

There are many books out there that I don’t want to read because they’re dull or poorly written, or even because the content offends me. But I appreciate the freedom to read or not read whatever I choose. As a new mother, I will decide what I feel is appropriate for my daughter to read at a young age, and I will teach her to make informed decisions about what she reads as she grows older. She’ll probably read some things I wish she hadn’t, just as I’ve read some things I regret. But better to teach her to make decisions for herself than to try to decide for her the rest of her life.

And truly, the best way to get rid of something is to ignore it. You forbid something, and it becomes a sought out curiosity for both children and adults. You try to ban a book or a movie, and it gets a lot more media attention. The first time Huckleberry Finn was censored, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed: "The directors of the Concord Public Library have joined in the general scheme to advertise MARK TWAIN’S new book, 'Huckleberry Finn.' They have placed it on the Index Expurgatorius, and this will compel every citizen of Concord to read the book in order to see why the guardians of his morals prohibited it."

Our world is full of ideas and people and even words that can offend. But I believe everyone should have the freedom to write what they want to write—and in the freedom to read it or not as I choose. So celebrate Banned Books Week: read whatever you want.

http://www.ala.org/bbooks

Introduction

Once upon a time my life revolved around words. Before I could read, I pretended to read. My dearest childhood friends were books. I have a bachelor's in English Literature and a master's in Publishing. As a young adult, I wouldn't leave the house without a book to read and a notebook to write in.

These days I won't leave the house without diapers and a burp rag. Much as I'd hoped to be an exception, during my pregnancy my brain was in a fog. Not only could I not write, I rarely even read any more. As I slowly emerge from that fog, I have begun reading again and this is one of my first attempts to write again.

This blog is a place for me to write about reading and writing and words. If no one but me reads it, then it is no worse than most of the things I write. I'm just happy to be reading and writing again.