Books I'm Intimidated By

I don't often do these, but I loved this week's question from The Book List. It asked what three books you're intimidated by.

1. Anything by Charles Dickens. I've read A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations is one of only about a dozen books I took with me on this move in the hopes that I'll actually read it. My difficulty with Dickens is that I know the stories are awesome, but man is it hard for me to plow through the language.

2. The Death of Adam by Marilynne Robinson. Her novel Housekeeping is at the top of my favorites list, but when I read her nonfiction book, I could just feel how inept my mind was next to hers.

3. The Fairie Queene by Edmund Spenser. An epic poem written in the 1590s. Need I say more?

What books intimidate you?

Review: Operating Instructions

“How on earth can anyone bring a child into this world knowing full well that he or she is eventually going to have to go through the seventh and eighth grades?” from Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott

I loved this book. It was recommended to me soon after I gave birth, but for some inexplicable reason I remained number three on the library's waiting list for the last 10 months. Now that I switched libraries, I put it on hold there and got it in less than a week.

I wish I had been able to read it before giving birth--and every day in the first few months of being a first time mom. Instead of being inundated with how to books and articles on parenting an infant, I wish I had just had this brutally honest account from one neurotic first time mom to reassure me that I was not the only neurotic first time mom. I'll certainly read it again.

A word of caution--although I loved this book and wish I could recommend it to every mother I know, be aware that there is a lot of cursing in it and if that bothers you, this book is not for you. I personally don't know how anyone gets through the first three months of a child's life without cursing a bit, but I know many people are more sensitive to it than I am.

Whether you read this book or not, here are a couple quotes I gleaned from it:

On the postpartum body:
“People kept trying to prepare me for how soft and mushy my stomach would be after I gave birth, but I secretly thought, Not this old bukerina. … Oh, but my stomach, she is like a waterbed covered with flannel now. When I lie on my side in bed, my stomach lies politely beside me, like a puppy.”

On breastfeeding:
“It’s mind-boggling that my body knows how to churn out this milk that he is growing on. … I’m going to have an awards banquet for my body when all of this is over.”

Newbery Review: Hitty: Her First Hundred Years

One of the most difficult books for me to read in my goal of reading all the Newbery Award Winners was this one, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Fields. It's about a doll of all things (not the only Newbery winner about a doll--I read Miss Hickory before I started blogging about my reading, but I definitely need to talk about that one later because it was by far the creepiest Newbery winner). And not only was it about a doll, but in all the libraries I searched, I could only find this new illustrated version where there's multiple pictures of this unblinking doll on every page.

One of my quirks that few people know about me is that I'm afraid of dolls. I bought a plush doll for my daughter for Christmas with no problem, but I'm freaked out by dolls that are made to look or act like real babies. The worst are porcelain dolls and the ones that really pee on the potty. So I approached Hitty with much trepidation.

I'm sure the illustrations were lovely, but I did my best not to look at them. Other than that, it wasn't too bad really. I read it all during my daughter's morning nap. As the title indicates, it's the story of a doll, Hitty, from the time she is made and how she wanders from owner to owner, good and bad, in her first hundred years. Though some of her time is spent stuffed away in attics or forgotten on shelves, Hitty is also privy to some major events in history, even meeting Abraham Lincoln.

While I read this book, I kept having the feeling that I had read it before, likely as a very young girl--back when a story about dolls wouldn't have scared me so much. And if you're not weird and afraid of dolls like I am, this isn't such a bad old story to read to a little girl.

Anne Lamott

When my daughter was first born, a friend recommended that I read Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year by Anne Lamott. I was finally able to find it from the library. I wish I had found it earlier--my baby is almost one years old, and I wish I had been able to have Lamott's book as my warning beforehand and my companion throughout this first year. A glowing review will follow when I finish it, but last night I was particularly struck by a passage. Lamott wonders if she is crazy to have ever believed in Jesus and then she recounts this experience:

Then something truly amazing happened. A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me and Sam ... after exchanging pleasantries he said, "Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want to ask is, What if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with?"

"I can't even say," I said. "It's too horrible."

But he finally convinced me to tell him, and I said it would be to clean the bathroom, and he ended up spending an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet and sink with Ajax and lots of hot water. I sat on the couch while he worked, watching TV, feeling vaguely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new mother's bathtub, is what Jesus means to me.

Review: I See Rude People

I don't remember what prompted me to pick up this book in the first place. I have mixed feelings about it. I don't really recommend it, but I don't regret reading it either.

Amy Alkon is an advice columnist who started a crusade against bad manners after someone stole her car. And while I agree with her cause, I don't necessarily agree with her methods. She gets up in people's faces about having loud cell phone conversations in public places, she bills (and in one case even sued) telemarketers for taking up her valuable time, and makes a big show of taking pictures of people acting badly and then posting them on her blog.

I hate loud cell phone talkers and bad drivers as much as the next person, but I don't think any of those people actually learn from being told off. If you flip off the driver who almost killed you by running that red light, they will not feel repentant, but rather indignant. The best you might do is make them work harder to justify their own actions. I do agree with the last chapter of Alkon's book--it's nice to be nice. The world would be a much more pleasant place if we treated everyone--complete strangers and people we interact with every day alike--as if they matter. Because they do.

Review: River Secrets

I think the Bayern books are growing on me. They're entertaining and great escapist literature. With the third book, I really began to appreciate how I was getting the continuation of familiar storyline, but with a focus and viewpoint of a different character. I liked seeing previous main characters from another point of view.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about River Secrets being from Razo's point of view as he was most often the comic relief in the previous two books. But I think Hale did a great job of showing his thought process and why he said or did things that seemed ridiculous to others. I came to like him and understand him better.

I'm looking forward to reading the fourth installment soon. And once I've read everything else by Shannon Hale, I am determined to pick up Princess Academy again and finish it this time.

Review: Beatrice and Virgil

Having read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, I had to pick up his second offering, Beatrice and Virgil. I thought the cover of his second book was wonderfully reminiscent of this cover from his first one:



I don't know if it was the same designer, but whoever designed the second one definitely had the first one in mind. I think they would look wonderful next to each other on the shelf.

But onto judging a book by its content... What to say about Beatrice and Virgil? It was odd and surprising, and at times even shocking (especially the climax for me).

The plot device was a little trite. A writer who won awards and acclaim for his first novel has a hard time writing his second novel (hmm, feeling the pressure Yann?). And the entire premise was a bit circular--the writer writes about a writer who can't write and sets out to help an amateur writer with writer's block write his first play.

I don't think he's writing to entertain or to provide an escape for his audience, so I think he accomplished exactly what he set out to accomplish. As a philosopher, I think Martel wants his books to make his readers think, which this one certainly did. And I think he'd even be pleased to know that his latest fare made this reader a bit uncomfortable.


This book is not for the average reader. That doesn't mean I don't recommend it, I'm just not sure who I'd recommend it to.

A New Library

Appropriately enough for National Library Week, I went to a new library today.

I have been so spoiled with the Garden Home Community Library being just a short walk from me for the past 3 1/2 years. Now I have to drive to the library--the Gresham Library is the closest library and it's a 15 minute drive. And there was no one there to greet us by name and exclaim over how big Ivy is getting.

But a library is still a place with books to read for free and storytime for children. Ivy loved the Book Babies today. She was one of the older ones there, though most people thought she was much younger because she is so small. Ivy was just excited to be around other little kids and to play with new toys. It's my adult brain that likes the familiar and missed Kendra and resisted the slight differences in how the songs were sung.

National Library Week

This is National Library Week. As previously gushed about, I love libraries. I moved last weekend and am looking forward to checking out my new closest library (though I'm terribly sad that I can no longer walk to a library). But because I moved this past weekend and am finishing up a job this week, I have no time to write a good posting about libraries and National Library Week.

Instead, I encourage you to click here to learn about why Neil Gaiman loves libraries. He has much more interesting things to say about them than I do anyway (and he says them with a cool accent).

Review: Catching Fire

Catching Fire, the follow up to Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games didn't disappoint. It was just as gripping and nail biting as the first, and I can't wait to read the third when it's released in August.

I must admit that I was surprised with the direction the plot took. Surprise in fiction is good, but there were a few parts in the beginning of the book that felt rushed in order for Collins to get to the story she really wanted to tell.

And this might be part of the main character's charm, but I found her to be completely clueless at times. Or in more flattering terms, you might say that she's innocent and unassuming. The hints that other characters were trying to give her were apparent to me, but she was completely blind to them. I'm still not sure if that bugged me or not. I may hold out judgement until book three to see if she learns to be a little more savvy.

Finally, I've heard that The Hunger Games is being made into a movie. Part of me wants to see it because I enjoyed the book, but another part worries that any true rendition would be too bloody and yucky for me. Of course, these books were written for ages 12 and up, so how much could they show in a movie made for that audience?