Little Fires Everywhere

I just finished the mini series on Hulu. Of course the acting was top notch. I thought they fixed a couple of issues I had in the book and they also left a lot of the content that I objected to.

I don't really accept the premise that white people with money are worse people than people without money. A lack of money doesn't make you pure or clear-eyed.

The big fix was Pearl - her reaction in the book to finding out the truth about her mom is so muted. In the series, they give her a chance to be angry and rail against her mom. We also hear her thoughts when she talks to Moody about the things she is learning, like "my mom thinks it makes me a better person to be poor" and she talks about wanting things when she was younger - pretty clothes, etc.

And I think they show Mia more upset by her choices, more upset by Pearl's reaction.

I also think they did a much better job in the series of explaining why we are supposed to dislike Elena - not just because she is rich and snobby, but because she is perpetuating a lie of perfection that is hurting her family. The series makes it much more clear that Lexie is suffering from trying to be perfect and she even yells this at Elena, who storms away, refusing to accept it. That pressure is bad and wrong, and a loving mother would not apply it. However, the pressure that Mia puts on Pearl to be carefree and unencumbered is also wrong. Both women see this in the end.

Both the book and the series, in my opinion, are too hard on Elena. She does mean well, she does try to help. She is ineffective and she is not completely self aware. But both the book and the series forgive Mia her sins (which are substantial), but they hold Elena completely responsible. In the series, Bill says to Elena, "people will be held accountable" (as she wants), which the audience clearly understands means HER (though of course she doesn't get it).

I read a review of the series that talked about how much the audience is supposed to (and does)  HATE Elena, and I was annoyed all over again. I really hate MIA and find HER insufferable and smug. But because she is an ARTIST, all is forgiven. Bleh. BOTH women are flawed, in some similar ways actually, but Mia comes off as wise and Elena as doomed.

I think the series does a clearer job of acknowledging the wrong Mia has done to the Ryans, another frustration I had with the book.

And both Linda and Mia make wonderful points during the hearing about how motherhood is hard, no one is perfect at it, everyone makes mistakes. And it is even said that it's not about who is the "best" mother. But then Mia gets to say "only Bebe IS her mother." Which I think is ridiculous. Obviously blood has almost nothing to do with mothering.

The money is so problematic. In the series, all 4 Richardson children disavow their upbringing in a (almost) final scene. But it annoys me even more to have all of them react this way, as opposed to just Izzy, as in the book. Being white and privileged is problematic but it's not evil. Having money is necessary. Mia agrees to be a surrogate in order to get money to pursue her dreams. That she drops out of school and still magically is able to make a living as an artist is a contriance that the book's author has wrought - Mia is SO talented of course, that her success is assured. Of course, many talented artists die unknown. In the novel and the series, Pauline's agent helps Mia by selling her work. So she HAS money, though she pretends not to - her poverty is an act to help obscure her location from the Ryans.

While I am a bleeding heart liberal to the core, it really bothers me that the book ignores how necessary money is to our lives, how it enables us to fulfill our goals. The Richardson children don't understand and appreciate all the comforts of their upbringing, but just rejecting these comforts and calling them foul doesn't improve the lives of people less fortunate. Which brings me back to Elena - in the series, Bill suggests that Elena has caused the trouble with Bebe by bringing Mia into the situation - in their rental, in their home, even into Linda's home, at the BD party.  So none of this is Mia's fault, it's Elena's for allowing (or facilitating) it. And the fact that Elena really was trying to help (both Mia and Linda) doesn't count.
 

Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere

I wasn't a huge fan of "Everything I Never Told You," so I had no real interest in Celeste's sophomore effort. However, it's the selection of the LeMoyne Library Book Club, so I need to read it.

I ultimately found the book quite a frustrating experience - after finding it compelling and well written, the ending pretty much ruined it for me. As with many celebrated books, I did not enjoy it anywhere as much as the hype suggested I should.

Anyway, back to the ending. The author inserted so many contrivances to make things work out the way she wanted. For example, where did an impoverished Bebe get money for a *last minute* plane ticket to China (does she even have a passport)? And how did Izzy just happen to be going through her mother's papers so that she conveniently had information for Mia, like her parent's address?

I also thought that many of the characters' behavior was really unrealistic. After spending the entire book settling into Shaker Heights and developing really strong relationships with many of the people there (especially her first boyfriend, Trip), Pearl is perfectly happy to walk away from it all and leave with her mother. AND she isn't upset AT ALL to find out that she has a dad and grandparents that her mother never told her about. Okaaay. I have a teenage daughter and she shows more outrage when I'm late picking her up from a friend's house. I get that Mia and Pearl have a strong bond, but come on, Pearl is still a teenager.

Sadly, I don't think that Izzy will last 6 weeks out on her own. She's what, 15 years old, and grew up in the lap of luxury. She's got a lot of attitude, but that doesn't pay the bills and it certainly doesn't keep you safe "on the road." I shudder to think where she will end up, despite the author setting it up for her to reconnect with the virtuous Mia.

Obviously, I don't share other readers' deification of her character. I thought her photographs of the Richardson family members was the ultimate contrivance. I found her to be an incredibly selfish person who had ditched every relationship in her life once it served her purpose (including her parents, her art school mentor, her kind California landlord, and, of course, the Ryans). But the reader is supposed to believe that she has preternatural insight into the very ESSENCE of these people who she barely knows. I'm not buying that even a little bit. It felt like a really fake but also blatant ploy to bolster affection for Mia. (NOTE that I found myself thinking of the ending of White Oleander, where the artist, Astrid, makes a "box" which represents her relationship with each of the "mothers" in her life.)

I also thought that evoking the infamous Baby M case was so interesting - like, what would happen if Mary Beth Whitehead was actually a cool artist and she never got caught after she kidnapped the baby. However, the author wants to rewrite the story and alter the reader's allegiances. That didn't work for me. I was completely disgusted with Mia from the moment her deception was revealed and, as a reader, I really resented that she not only got away scot free, but the author attempts to manipulate our sympathies so that we cheer Mia on at every turn. Clearly, from the reviews I have read, she was mostly successful in this. Mrs Richardson, the rule follower, the dark yin to Mia's passionate yang, is the bad guy of the piece. If Mrs Richardson is such a troll, why did the author bother to linger on Pearl's fascination with all the Richardsons - the mom as well as the children who she raised to have such enthralling amounts of confidence?

A more interesting and nuanced novel would consider the perspectives of all the characters with equal sympathy, forcing the reader to reexamine their own biases, rather than using the situations to reinforce a pretty tired cliche about the unappreciated value of free spirits.

Discussion questions for "Gather the Daughters"

I'm not sure I can say that I enjoyed this book, but it really got under my skin. I found some discussion questions online from the publisher (indicated by *), some of which I expanded on (indicated by **). I added a bunch of my own as well.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS for GATHER THE DAUGHTERS by Jennie Melamed

**1. What do you think about Janey's claim that there are no Wastelands? What evidence is there to support this? Is there evidence that the Wastelands exist? How do you interpret Vanessa’s view of the Wastelands (mainland) as she approaches them at the end of the book?

*2. How have their upbringings and their relationships to their fathers’ upbringing affected Janey, Caitlin, Mary, Vanessa, and Amanda?

**3. At Mrs. Balthazar's party, Denise asks Amanda, "What happens to the sons, when the fathers leave?" What does this statement signify? Does it change your view of the Island? What do you think happened to the young men who disappeared? Did they commit suicide?

**4. How culpable are the men for abusing their daughters, when their culture and religion expects it of them? How does this level of responsibility compare to someone who abuses a child in our society? What do you think of Janey’s father’s perspective on his “obligation” to his daughters? What about Vanessa’s father’s approach to this issue?

5. How culpable are the women for allowing their husbands to abuse their daughters, when their culture and religion expects it of them? How can we make sense of their willingness to participate in this? Can you think of examples in other cultures where women allow daughters to be abused, such as Chinese foot binding or African female genital mutilation? How do we account for this?

6. What do you think of the daughters’ acquiescence to the Island’s culture of incest? Do you think it is realistic? Can you think of examples, like religious cults, where this sort of thing happens in real life? Do more girls (in real life) rebel against it?

7. What do you think of the Island’s method of dealing with people as they age? Why do you think the Wanderers chose to eliminate people so (relatively) early in their lives (once they could no longer reproduce)? What did you think about Vanessa’s reaction to Mrs Adam’s tale of her grandmother?

8. Why do you think Janey was the only one to rebel? What did you think about the other daughters’ initial reaction to Janey’s “sermon” – just thinking about alternate islands with year around summer or better food, but not thinking about a different social order or escape from submission to their fathers? Do you think that is realistic? What do you think the author was trying to say by having Janey’s “sermon” play out like this?

9. What did you think of the way that girls are initiated into “fruition” (with a multiple week orgy)? What did you think of the Island’s way of letting young people run wild all summer? What did you think were the functions of those traditions? Can you think of any examples in real life that compare, such as the Amish Rumspringa?

*10. Are there any elements of life on the Island that you could see existing in real life, now or in the future? If so, which ones?

11. What do you think about Vanessa’s access to books? What do you think the author is saying about books and reading? Do you think Vanessa would have been as naturally curious and questioning without having spent time reading?

12. What do you think of Vanessa’s father’s reaction when he realizes that other Wanderers have murdered Island residents? What do you think of Vanessa’s reaction to his reaction?

13. What did you think of the sickness that came to the Island? What do you think happened? Do you think this is realistic? What did you think of the Islanders response to the illness? What did you think of the Wanderers response to the aftermath of the illness?

14. Where do you think Vanessa’s father got the medicine he forced Vanessa to take? Why did Vanessa resist taking it? What do you think the Wanderers should have done about the illness and about the medicine?

15. What did you think of Janey’s death? What do you think was her cause of death? Do you think her death was inevitable? What do you think the author was trying to say about her character? Was her character a savior? Christ-like?

16. What did you think of Caitlyn's suicide? Do you think her death was inevitable? Did you think it was noble or hopeless or cowardly?

17. What did you think about the Wanderers recruitment campaign? How do you think they were finding participants from the mainland? What do you think of the observation “Maybe there are no more men like the Wanderers”? What do you imagine the original Wanderers were like?

18. What did you think of the Island economy (subsistence farming and bartering)? What do you think the Wanderers used for money when they went to the mainland to get glass for windows and other things?

*19. In many works of fiction, we see utopias quickly descending into dystopias. Do you think the Island was originally a utopia, or was it always a dystopia for its inhabitants? How and why do utopias often turn into dystopias?

*19. Which character did you feel the strongest connection to? Did this change over the course of the novel?

*20. Which scenes or developments in the novel affected you the most?

*21. What did you make of the novel’s end? Did you want more closure? 

22. How do you think Vanessa and her family fare on the mainland? Do you think they are able to adapt?

*23. Where do you see the characters in ten years? Do you think the Island continues to exist or is it discovered and disbanded? 

24. Would you like the author to write a sequel? If so, what would you like to see happen in it?

25. Is your reaction to the novel altered at all by hearing that the author is (in real life) a nurse who has worked with children who are victims of abuse and trauma?

* Questions from the publisher, Little, Brown and Company

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/littlebrown-rgg-gatherthedaughtersrgg.pdf

** Questions from the publisher, supplemented by questions from Danielle

All other questions (those unmarked) are created by Danielle

Book trouble

I'm having a terrible time finding a book to love this year.  I've started and discarded at least 3 books since January. Part of the problem is YA novels that sound great, but disappoint.  (At this rate, I'm never going to meet my reading goal of 50 books this year - I think I've finished 4 books in the first 2 months of 2013.)


I put these dystopian/fantasy YA novels into 2 distinct categories.  The ones written pretty much exclusively for teenagers, with lots of angst, and teenager elements like mean girls and cafeteria pow wows, including The Predicteds, Die for Me (blatant Twilight knockoff), A Great and Terrible Beauty (strong title, weak book), and the one I'm struggling through right now, Adaptation (should be excellent, just based on the title).

Then there are the ones that appeal to a wider audience (in other words, adults), like The Hunger Games, Pure, Enclave, and Divergent. The latter category tend to hit the ground running and maintain that pace, while the former tend to be more meandering (coincidence, I don't think so).

SIDE NOTE: I would put books (series) like Uglies, Matched, Shatter Me, and Delirium somewhere in the middle of these two categories because they appeal to adults but the lean towards the teenagery in their character development and plot lines.

Unfilmable books

Super interesting story about making books into movies when the book isn't really "filmable."

The centerpiece of the film Life of Pi is a boy adrift on a lifeboat with a tiger in the middle of the ocean. That's easy enough for Yann Martel to describe in his novel — but hard to make happen on the set of a movie. As it happens, Pi is in theaters with another movie based on an "unfilmable" novel: Cloud Atlas, with six different plots in six different time periods.

Some books are challenging to film because they're challenging to read. Take Ulysses, James Joyce's stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, published in 1922.

"Ulysses was for a very long time considered unfilmable both because of the complexity of the plot and the point of view of the characters," says Maria Konnikova, a freelance writer who recentlyexplored unfilmable books for The Atlantic.

She points out that Ulysses has actually been filmed — not once but twice.

Other novels are considered unfilmable because they're too introspective and heady. Take Joseph Heller's dark World War II novel, Catch-22.

"Both the paranoia and kind of the sense of helplessness in the plot makes it difficult to kind of get out of the head of the characters and translate that to the screen," Konnikova notes.

That didn't stop director Mike Nichols from trying. Critics panned the movie version of Catch-22. And Heller himself had mixed feelings about it, though he also acknowledged that "complex novels don't make good movies."

It's for that reason that David Mitchell never thought his ambitious novel would make it to the screen. Cloud Atlas won a British Book Award and was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but Mitchell didn't think it had a chance for a movie deal.

Cloud Atlas is all over the place, intentionally. It follows six completely different stories, in genres from science fiction to crime thriller to romance.

It took three people to bring it to the screen: Lana and Andrew Wachowski (who made the theMatrix movies) and Tom Tykwer, perhaps best known for Run Lola Run.

As with the novel, there are six movies within the movie, set in the past and the future.

Another reason Mitchell thought his novel would never make it to the screen: the size of the cast it would take. It doesn't cost a writer a dime to add a character, but it can cost a filmmaker a lot to add an actor to a cast. The Wachowskis got around the problem by having actors play as many as six completely different roles. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Hugh Grant, among others, are transformed to the point of being unrecognizable through Hollywood makeup and costume magic.

By casting it this way, Mitchell believes, the filmmakers also made it easier for viewers to understand his concept, of one soul moving through the many different worlds.

"The directors have played to the advantages of film as a medium," he says.

Playing to the advantage of film as a medium was the only way director Ang Lee could adapt a fantasy novel like Life of Pi. When Lee was filming, the young actor and the tiger were never on the lifeboat at the same time.

"I would have liked to, but I was not allowed to by 20th Century Fox," Lee says. The hesitancy of the studio is understandable. A young boy on a lifeboat with a wild animal is a great tension-filled situation for a story, but probably a liability-insurance nonstarter.

Instead those scenes were shot separately, with a combination of real tigers and computer-generated big cats. Only through editing and special effects does it seem to the audience that the boy and the tiger are adrift on the ocean together.

Technology alone can't make the film Life of Pi as big a success as the novel. Fortunately for 20th Century Fox, Lee brings his extraordinary imagination to the project. He was also given an enormous budget.

Konnikova thinks some filmmakers overuse CGI at the expense of the story. Take the Lord of the Rings films: Even though they've been critically and commercially successful, Konnikova says they've lost the emotional depth of Tolkien's writings to what she calls "special effects plot points."

"You lose kind of the dynamics," she says. "You lose the inner struggles that are happening within each character, which are so finely wrought on the page."

Konnikova thinks it's better to take the spirit of a novel and work it into a new, original movie. The classic example is Clueless — Jane Austen's Emma, reimagined in a Beverly Hills high school in the 1990s.

"Amy Heckerling showed an insight when she did that, to make it so different that she completely, I think, captured the spirit of Austen without dragging it down," Konnikova says.

Ang Lee agrees that some movie versions fail because the filmmakers have tried to be too faithful to the original text.

"There's a saying in the business: Either you ruin a novel and make a great film, or you can be loyal to the book and make a bad movie," he says.

Author David Mitchell cautions against another old Hollywood trope. Be careful, he says, when a filmmaker says, "I won't change a thing."

Dystopian books into movies

I'm sort of tickled that I've read most of these - I just finished the Chaos Walking trilogy, The 11th Plague, and Enclave, and I'm finishing Shatter Me right now.  I read Ender's Game earlier this year, as well as Divergent, Matched and Delirium.  I read Uglies a couple of years ago.  I already have Partials, Under the Never Sky, Across the Universe, and especially Legend on my Must Read list.  I think they would all make great movies.  The only one that I have no interest in is The Selection, which sounds like garbage.

'Hunger Games' Success Proves Dystopia Is the New Supernatural

By Brooke Tarnoff 

From "Nosferatu" to "Twilight," supernatural movies have never gone out of style. Vampires and their monster homies have enjoyed a constant stream of cinematic exposure since the turn of the last century, but they've never been more pervasive than in the last few years, breaking out of horror confines and sparkling their way into other genres.

We'd be naive to say supernaturals are on their way out — they'll never leave, and we wouldn't want them to. But we'd be blind not to notice the creepy new sheriff in town: Dystopia.

As themes go, it's nothing new ("Children of Men," "Blade Runner"... "Idiocracy") but amidst the insane success of "The Hunger Games," studios are snapping up the rights to similar books the moment they land on shelves — and in a few cases, before that.

So move over, monsters. In honor of "The Hunger Games'" record-breaking opening weekend, we're looking at some horrifying visions of future governments that will soon make the leap from page to screen.

"Divergent" By Veronica Roth

HarperCollins

The Gist: Roth's futuristic Chicago is divided into five separate communities: Abnegation (selfless), Candor (honest), Dauntless (brave), Amity (peaceful), and Erudite (intelligent). At 16, each citizen decides which virtue to embrace — singularly and permanently. Like all dystopian stories, this "perfect system" has a few skeletons in the closet, which Dauntless initiate Tris uncovers (with the help of her hot hottie mentor).

Movie status: Summit is developing this, with "Snow White and the Huntsman" writer Evan Daugherty tackling the adaptation. Check outour interview with Roth for her take on the progress.

"Ender's Game" By Orson Scott Card

Tor

The Gist: Proof positive that the Dystopian genre is no flash in the pan — "Ender's Game" was written in 1985. Living on a far-future Earth, twice threatened by a species of insectoid aliens nicknamed Buggers, the government of "Ender's Game" puts small children in horrifically violent situations to locate and train the tiny fleet commanders who will one day save the planet. It's a small price to pay for the safety of humanity... unless you believe little kids shouldn't beat each other savagely with weapons, or something.

Movie status:The film version will be released on March 15, 2013 by Summit, starring Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin and Harrison Ford. "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" director Gavin Hood is running the show.

"Legend" By Marie Lu

Putnam

The Gist: Day is on the run from a military government in what used to be the United States when he meets June, a military prodigy from an elite family. Though Day is accused of murdering June's brother, the two stumble on the Republic of California's dirtiest secrets together. Warning: You might want to marry Day, even if you're a boy.

Movie status: It's being produced by "Twilight"'s Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen, and directed by "Warm Bodies" helmer Jonathan Levine. Check out Hollywood Crush's interview with Lu about the adaptation.

"Matched" By Ally Condie

Dutton Juvenile

The Gist: If "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Giver" had a clever little baby, it would be Condie's first book in a series of dystopian YA novels. Cassia is a happy, well-adjusted teen living in some undetermined future where mandatory mates are delivered by pictures on digital information cards. It's only when a glitch flashes the wrong boy's face that Cassia considers the relative merit of dating options — and therefore questions the whole nature of her world.

Movie Status: Disney snapped up the movie rights —and "Rock of Ages" director Adam Shankman is lined up to produce.

"Chaos Walking" Trilogy By Patrick Ness

Candlewick

The Gist: A post-plague world populated only by men — and polluted by a constant stream of audible inner monologues called "The Noise" — is suddenly turned upside down for teenager Todd when he meets... a girl... though Todd's own government swore they were all dead. Uh oh.

Movie Status: Lionsgate's announced plans to adapt "The Knife of Never Letting Go" — the first book in the "Chaos Walking" trilogy — for the big screen, with Doug Davison ("The Departed") set to produce.

"Shatter Me" By Tahereh Mafi

HarperCollins

The Gist: HarperCollins has called Mafi's debut novel "'Hunger Games' meets 'X-Men'" and we can't disagree. An invigorating blend of romance, super-powers and post-apocalyptic survival techniques on a police state stage, "Shatter Me" was basically made to be a movie.

Movie Status: 20th Century Fox bought the rights — read an interview with Mafi about it on theFABlife.

"Delirium" By Lauren Oliver

HarperCollins

The Gist: Love is a disease — everyone who's ever been dumped knows this. But in "Delirium," love is literally classified as a disease, and citizens of Oliver's future society receive a mandatory surgery to cure them, for the good of a healthy, sane community. Unless they, like, escape and fall in love with a fellow rebel. For instance.

Movie Status: Producers Paula Mazur and Mitch Kaplan are developing "Delirium" for Fox 2000. Oliver talked to theFABlife about her involvement with the movie.

"Under the Never Sky" By Veronica Rossi

HarperCollins

The Gist: Aria has lived her entire life in a dome, generations after the outside world was deemed uninhabitable by the government. After she's banished from the dome in a vicious political maneuver, she teams up with a love interest hunter who has his own reasons to challenge those in charge of her home.

Movie Status:"Under the Never Sky" been optioned for film by Warner Bros.

"Uglies" By Scott Westerfeld

Simon & Schuster

The Gist: In Tally Youngblood's society, ugliness is a thing of the past — upon citizens' 16th birthday, they each get plastic surgery that removes unsightly bumps, blotches and, oh, the ability to think like normal, intelligent people. Unfortunately, the surgery is very mandatory, and the penalty for escaping it is steep. Just maybe not as steep as the penalty fornot escaping, you know? We love thinking.

Movie Status: 20th Century Fox and producer John Davis bought the film rights to the novel.

"The Selection" By Kiera Cass

HarperTeen

The Gist: In the former U.S., citizens are separated into a rigid caste system that dictates their love lives, their professions and more. Only one thing can elevate a girl above her inherited station: a "Bachelor"-esque dating competition created by the country's ruling family to find Prince Maxon a wife. Outside the castle, there's civil unrest and a little starvation, but inside: pretty dresses, etiquette lessons and TV cameras. Fun for everyone! Well... everyone inside the castle.

Movie status: We think this would make a great movie, but the geniuses at the CW went and made a pilot with the adorable Aimee Teegarden and Ethan Peck — even though the book's not coming out until April. With "Angel" and "Vampire Diaries" writers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain onboard, we have high hopes.

And more!

These haven't been optioned — yet — but they're a few more excellent examples of dystopian fiction and we'll be monkey's uncles if some studio doesn't snap them up soon: "Partials," "The Eleventh Plague," "Enclave" and "Across the Universe."

The Happiness Project

I started to listen to this book on tape - I had heard of it a year or so ago, and it was on the sale shelf at Audible during their last big promotion.  I'm enjoying the book, though some of it is rather, er, confronting.

In the introductory chapter, she lists her "secrets of adulthood" - things that she has learned are actually true, even if cliche or counter intuitive.  I find them rattling around in my head since reading them:

The days are long, but the years are short.

Turning the computer on and off a few times often fixes a glitch.

It’s okay to ask for help.

You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you LIKE to do.

Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy.

What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.

You don’t have to be good at everything.

Soap and water removes most stains.

It’s important to be nice to EVERYONE.

You know as much as most people.

Over-the-counter medicines are very effective.

What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you — and vice versa.

People actually prefer that you buy wedding gifts off their registry.

Houseplants and photo albums are a lot of trouble.

If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.

No deposit, no return.

Favorite books

With some regularity, people ask me to recommend books.  I thought I would create a favorites list that I could return to when I get inquiries:

Dystopia
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
When She Woke by Hillary Jordan
Divergent by Veronica Roth

Fantasy
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Fire by Kristen Cashore
Poison Study by Maria Snyder
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Dysfunctional families (aka abandoned by mother)
How to be Lost by Amanda Eyre Ward
Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz
The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
Crow Lake by Mary Lawson

Meaningful
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Fault in our Stars by John Green
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Second Heaven by Judth Guest
Wherever You Go by Joan Leegant
Historical fiction
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Pope Joan by Donna Woolcroft
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
Rose by Martin Cruz Smith
All Other Nights by Dara Horn

Romance
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
A Promising Man by Elizabeth Young
Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young


Lighter
Anything by Elinor Lipman
The Diamond Lane by Karen Karbo

Non-fiction
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Into Thin Air by
Under the Banner of Heaven


Older books/Classics
A Wrinkle in Time
Fahrenheit 451
Brave New World
Shogum
Mila 18
The Stand
Firestarter
Carrie
The Dead Zone
The Chosen
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Books for younger readers
That Quail Robert
Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack by ME Kerr
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

People make no sense

I just don't understand people! We've had ongoing trouble with selecting a book for my book club. We nominate books and then vote online, but we seen to end up with books that people don't like, or worse, don't want to read, surprisingly often.  When we sat down tonight, two of the active members, both in their 20s, said they thought we should pick more contemporary books (3 of the last 4 books were at least 20 years old and the next book poll is first-book-of-a-popular-mystery-series, so of course, most of those books are pretty old too). I wholeheartedly agree (and I've repeatedly suggested book club favorites from recent years to try to address this, but that's another conversation). So we discuss the current book for awhile and then get back to considering future books.  We decide to go with a theme mentioned previously - books made into movies.  We brainstorm some titles, trying to stay within the last decade.  Then one of the young women who said we should pick more current books suggests The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (published in 1979 and made into a movie that no one saw) because it's "hysterical."  I said, "I thought we wanted to pick more current books," but she just plowed on, saying how great it was.  This is EXACTLY how we've ended up reading books from 20, 30 and 40 years ago, and it's exactly what SHE AGREED we didn't want to do!! W-T-F???

"The Fault in our Stars"

John Green has written a really wonderful book.  Almost as wonderful as The Book Thief.  I have about a million favorite lines and passages from the book, but this is probably my absolute favorite passage:

Hazel's father tells her:

"That's what I believe. I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is improbably biased toward consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it - or my observation of it - is temporary?” 


Later Hazel says:

“We sat there quite for a long time, which was fine, and I was thinking about way back in the very beginning in the Literal Heart of Jesus when Gus told us that he feared oblivion, and I told him that he was fearing something universal and inevitable, and how really, the problem is not suffering itself or oblivion itself but the depraved meaninglessness of these things, the absolutely inhumane nihilism of suffering. I thought of my dad telling me that the universe wants to be noticed. But what we want is to be noticed by the universe, to have the universe give a shit what happens to us — not the collective idea of sentient life but each of us, as individuals.” 

This is also very good:


"I had been looking toward the Encouragement above the TV, a drawing of an angel with the caption 'Without Pain, How Could We Know Joy?'  (This is an old argument in the field of Thinking About Suffering, and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries, but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not in any way affect the taste of chocolate.)” 


And this:

"But thinking about Lidewij and her boyfriend, I felt robbed. I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up that you can't make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn't see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.” 

Reading progress

As June winds down, Goodreads informs me that I'm on track to reach my 2012 goal of reading 50 books, as I've now completed 25. I wish it were true.  Two of the books on my list I didn't actually read completely.

I've created 2 shelf categories, Gave up and Need to Finish, to capture books I started but didn't finish.  However, there's no way to eliminate them from the total count, because there's only 3 status categories: To Read, Currently Reading, and Read.

23 books is still impressive, though 2 of those are "novellas" (that I got free on Audible), so I'm not sure I feel right counting them either.

But even 21 books in 6 months is pretty darn good for me - just a few years ago (2007) I read that many books over the whole year!

Author Skype

Wonderful event as part of the CNY Reads program.  My book club happened to pick The Book Thief right around the time that CNY Reads picked it. So I went to the CNY Reads kickoff event back in January, which was wonderful, and this was the final event - the author, Markus Zusak, talked with an audience of about 75 people at the Liverpool library.  He was perfect - funny, charming and so humble and gracious.  One of my book club members, Karthik, took this photo of me, asking a question.

"Destiny of the Republic"

I really enjoyed this book by Candice Millard.  I actually listened to the audio book (the reader, Paul Michael, was excellent).  It felt a bit padded - Garfield doesn't get shot until past the halfway point, and I got a bit impatient with what felt like excessive detail - for example, tons of details about Garfield's election (during a long convention which began with Grant considered a shoe-in) and the assassin, Guiteau's daily activities (tons of details about the places he lived and things he did up to the time he got fixated on Garfield).  And the detail on events prior to the shooting belied the grandiose title.  But these are relatively minor quibbles. Despite the somewhat labored presentation, it's a fascinating and rather sad story.  Here are some of the things that I've learned:


Just 16 years after Lincoln was shot IN A PUBLIC PLACE, Garfield was shot IN A PUBLIC PLACE, but it wasn't until McKinley was shot IN A PUBLIC PLACE, just 20 years after Garfield, that the Secret Service, previously tasked with pursuing counterfeiters, were put in charge of presidential security. (Seems like the U.S. was pretty slow on the uptake with this issue!)


Garfield spent 80 days (virtually all of them miserable, most of them agonizing; he lost 1/3 of his body weight, over 75 pounds), dying of sepsis (the gunshot was not fatal), despite widespread adoption of Lister's germ theory in Europe, and, even more tragically, 20 years later, McKinley also died of sepsis (his gunshot was also not fatal), though much more quickly (in just 8 days). So medical care did not improve significantly in an entire generation, even though Lister's theory was been much more widely accepted in America by then. 


Two important inventions resulted from his ordeal - an early version of a sonogram machine (feverishly invented by Alexander Graham Bell in an attempt to save the president), and the indoor air conditioner (to battle a brutal D.C. summer).


There was no provision in the Constitution to deal with a president's incapacitation.  Despite the long period of Garfield's incapacity, there was nothing done at that time to deal with the issue.  In 1919, 38 years later, Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in office and spent several days in a coma.  The issue of presidential incapacitation was not dealt with at that time either.  It wasn't until 1967 that the 26th amendment to the Constitution was drafted to provide official procedures.

And maybe my favorite - Garfield spent the time leading up to the election at his farm in Ohio because at that time, it was considered unseemly for the candidate to actively campaign!


Though from humble origins, Garfield was smart and educated, and seemed a genuinely decent man.  He did not have a burning ambition to be president, which may be the best qualification for the job.  If he had not died, he probably would have been an excellent, and maybe even important, president, during a fractious and difficult period in our history.


Sadly, the tragedy of his death probably brought the nation together after the civil war in a way that few other events could have done.  So if there's a silver lining, it's surely that.


Chester Arthur, the vice president, was a political choice, from the "stalwart" wing of the Republicans, and considered a puppet of an ambitious lifelong political figure, Roscoe Conkling (some even suspected that Arthur and Conkling were behind the assassination). But he was so affected by Garfield's death that he rejected further influence by Conkling, and vigorously pursued reform of the patronage system by establishing the civil service, as Garfield no doubt would have done. His dramatic transformation was captured in this famous quote by a journalist of the time: "No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired ... more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe."

Other interesting factoids:

Garfield's was the first presidential library, established by his widow, Lucretia, in their family home in Mentor, Ohio.

The case had a profound impact on the insanity defense, which was being widely used at that time. Guiteau probably was insane - he had been erratic for years and he'd been committed more than once.  His behavior throughout his trial was utterly bizarre - among many other things, he insisted on representing himself (he was trained as a lawyer), he frequently called random spectators as witnesses, he regularly insulted and cursed the judge and jury, and his final statement was in the form of an epic poem.  Obviously, the public had no tolerance for the plea in this case. Guiteau has the dubious distinction of living longer than any of the 4 American presidential assassins - 9 months.

* * * * * *

I found this story so involving that I immediately started to read another book from the period, Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising, about John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, but I couldn't get into it.  I'm still convinced that I'll enjoy historical non-fiction more than I originally thought, but maybe spaced out, with other books in between.

Annual book goal

For the last 2 years at the goodreads.com website, I've set a goal of reading 50 books.  At the site, I appear to have exceeded my goal this year, but that's before deleting books that I didn't finish and kids' books, which I don't want to count in my total (though I want to track them in my account). After the deletions, I've gotten very close to 50, but didn't quite make it - I've finished 46 books.  I'm reading 2 right now, one on paper and an audiobook that I'm about 2/3 done with.  I'm trying to finish both, but I've only got 3 days left.

Even if I don't get to 50, I've done much better than I did in 2010 - I only read 38 books last year.

Even though I didn't set a goal before last year, you can really see the improvement since I started posting books to the site: in 2009, I read 22 books, and in 2008, I read just 18 books. Joining the book club has helped me stay motivated, and just devoting a bit more time and energy to reading has really paid off.

Madame Bovary

I read this book for my book club.  Interesting and thought-provoking.  I didn't really expect to like it, but I enjoyed reading it, especially the second half.  It's a little hard to get "into," but a lot of books are that way.  I might not have persevered if I hadn't been motivated by the book club, so I'm glad I had that to keep me going.

I read the Francis Steegmuller translation, which is considered the most authoritative.  I got a gorgeous copy of the book at the library - a real treasure, with a ribbon bookmark built in.  The saddest thing about ebooks is that we won't have these lovely books to hold and read anymore (they're virtually extinct already).

In the Steegmuller intro, he says that Madame Bovary is considered a "perfect" book.  Flaubert apparently crafted every sentence with deliberation.  It has some beautiful passages, though the descriptions can get a bit tedious, and I admit to scanning more than a few paragraphs.

One of the things that struck me was how modern the book seemed.  Other than the descriptions of clothes and transportation (and medical treatments, ugh) you could almost swear you were reading a 21st century novel, which is a testimony to Flaubert's skill.  It's also a testimony to the incredible universality of the themes in the book, which occur so frequently in literature that they are almost cliche - boredom with modern life, the search for love, the petty cruelties of friends and neighbors.

I found the character of Emma to be both sympathetic and highly aggravating.  I went back and forth, feeling for her situation and then feeling annoyed with her.  She makes many bad choices, and succumbs to self-pity (and of course the ultimate self-pitying act), but she is often aware of her own foolishness, and some of the best passages are her questioning herself: why am I so unhappy, why can't I take pleasure in my life?

I was a bit surprised that she commits suicide, not over lost love, but due to her financial ruin, and her general cynicism about life.  In general the book is not romantic or passionate the way I expected it to be, but that's not ultimately a flaw.

The question is always raised about whether this is a feminist novel.  On the one hand, I would say, definitely not, because Emma is such a victim of her circumstances and her melancholy nature.  But there's also an amazing passage fairly early in the book, talking about the dilemma of women, that could have been penned by Betty Friedan, right out of The Feminine Mystique.

As I read it, I often found myself wondering: where are her female friends?  It seemed almost an oversight on the author's part - women always have friends in novels written by women.  Emma does not seem especially anti-social and I had to think that her story would have ended very differently if she'd taken the trouble to cultivate some girlfriends.

I also thought the author's gender was apparent in the short shrift that Emma's relationship with her daughter was given.  The child is almost an afterthought throughout the book.  It's possible that a woman of such strong emotions would have so little connection to her child, but I thought it was improbable, and one of the few weaknesses of the story.

I also thought some of the secondary characters could have been developed more.  For a story that was so carefully crafted, this seemed something of a missed opportunity.

Overall I enjoyed the book and thought about it more than many books I've read.  I was left with the thought that there are so many "classic" novels that I never read, and the ones I read in school I didn't probably understand or appreciate. Added to my Bucket List: take a literature course!

(Even) more on Twilight

I'm still annoyed about the fan boy fuss directed at Breaking Dawn in particular and Twilight in general (as the juggernaut consumes the world's movie dollars, breaking the $300 million mark in less than a week), and I had a new thought, about the source of their spite.  I know part of it is the co-opting of the vampire genre, which clearly annoys a lot of folks.  But I'm also convinced that an unspoken irritation is Bella/Kristen Stewart, who is not portrayed as nearly sexy enough.  True, in the latest installment, she appears in a couple of honeymoon scenes clad in a bikini and negligees. But the ship has long since sailed on her persona - she's not "hot."  I really think that if she had been portrayed in a more traditional sexy and available way in the movies, the first one especially, much of the hostility toward the series would be muted.  Fan boy films require a hot girlfriend character, not jeans and hoodies and sensible shoes.  If they'd put her in a low cut top and a push up bra, tight jeans or a mini skirt, and slathered gloss on her plumped-up-with-collagen lips, I really don't think they would (still) be howling so loudly about how "stupid" these movies are.

Commentary on Breaking Dawn

This feminist analysis makes some very good points, and the fact that the series is so widely read by young women means that it's very likely influencing their attitudes, whether you think it's pop culture "crap" or not. I like the series, including the final book, and obviously I consider myself a feminist.

I think the appeal has a lot to do with good old-fashioned romance, because Edward is a very old-fashioned figure - polite, considerate, protective, etc. Lots of adult women still fantasize about such a man! The entire romance genre is hugely popular, and profitable, and many, if not most, of these standard romance books (and movies!) portray relationships pretty much exactly like Edward and Bella's (whether historical romance or modern chick lit or young adult fiction).  And portray women/young women desiring the same things criticized by the author of this critical article - a thin body, a good man, children . . .

The other, more disturbing elements of Twilight, oft-discussed, like Edward's attempts to control Bella (though rarely successful) are valid points. Sexist tropes are extremely prevalent in today's books and movies, even if more alternatives exist now compared to when I was a teen. I think this is a valid discussion - I worry greatly about the self image and expectations that my own daughter and other young ladies will develop in a culture that still communicates a very stunted message to them about who they should be.  Though I'm more concerned about the shallow consumeristic role models like the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, and the Housewives of Whatever, than I am about Twilight!  At least young ladies are reading books!

The Bloody, Twisted, Inverted World of Twilight: 

Violent Vampire Sex, Demon-Babies and Overwhelming Female Desire

by Sarah Seltzer

Alternet

. . . Every time a new installment of the neverending Twilight film franchise comes out, I have to reassess this massively popular tale that is such a paradox: it’s centered around a young woman’s desire, yes, but it’s a desire for all the wrong things (by feminist standards as well as by normal social ones). There’s no question that Twilight is saturated with sexist tropes--to the point of being disturbing. But there’s also no question that that disturbing element is compelling, too. Deeply so.

There’s a reason teenage girls are obsessed with this story, after all, and it’s not because they’re shallow consumers of pop trash: over the course of four books and five movies, Bella’s needs, wants and impulses are by the strongest power manifested -- stronger than the vampires and werewolves combined. Her inmost wishes are the steady heartbeat that propels the action forward to an absurd degree. 

She wants to date vampire Edward, she dates Edward--even though he is dangerous. She wants to keep her second suitor, werewolf Jacob, in her life, she keeps him in her life--even though he keeps messing with her relationship. She wants to sleep with Edward (a lot) even though he might accidentally kill her, and she finally gets to, and she loves it. She wants to deliver her dangerous baby despite the fact that it is literally destroying her body and she gets to. Everyone loves her baby, too, including Jacob, who will one day marry it, but that’s another story.

Bella wants to be a vampire even though Edward and Jacob hope she can stay human and have a good human life, but her suicide by demon-childbirth leaves them no choice but to turn her vamp (the final shot of the latest film in which her new vampire eyes open is a stunning one), so now she’s a vampire--and she loves it! And (spoiler alert) in the second installment of Breaking Dawn, her desire to hang with her human relatives despite her new thirst for their blood will win out, as will her desire for the bad vampires to leave her family alone. She ends up being the strongest vampire around, too; now that she’s immortal her desires take physical, supernatural form and allow her to shield her loved ones. But this new power is an afterthought, almost redundant. For the entire series, what Bella wants, Bella gets.

. . . But as for the substance of her wants, therein lies the perversely haunting twist. I’d argue that Bella's desires are direct responses to the patriarchy we actually live in. In fact, Meyer has created for her heroine an inverted version of our unjust society.  In this invented, inverted world, Bella is allowed to want sex, and vocalize it, and initiate it, while her partner is the gatekeeper who makes sure she is safe and married before she gets “hurt.” In her world, the men around her urge her to abort her fetus for her own safety, but she gets to “choose” to deliver it even though it kills her. In her world, her boyfriend can urge her to attend college and better herself while she can push for an early marriage--and be right! In her world, she can reject her body and trade it in for a new one that is agile, strong, lithe. Her choices are consistently to fall into the arms of the patriarchy and trust that it will catch her, and her faith is validated: she gets a perfect husband, angelic child, new body.