Mothers, Tell Your Daughters (completed 1/3/2016). A book of short stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell. Most stories were about poor women and their relationships with each other or with the men in their lives. A common theme was abuse that went unrecognized. Many of the stories also dealt with caretaking as a shaping influence. I enjoyed the story "Daughters of the Animal Kingdom" which was about a woman in the sandwich generation--taking care of her mother and her own family and having very little time for herself. In my favorite scene, she finds refuge in the chicken coop, among the warm, soft feathers where she is discovered by her husband. I'll definitely have to check out more by this author.
Dirty Chick: Adventures of an Unlikely Farmer (completed 1/19/2016). Any book with a chicken on the cover is one I will at least pick up, but this was really a gem. Young, financially secure urban couple decides to sail away and ends up in New Zealand with a baby who has cognitive delays. They (naturally) decide to become farmers--it makes some sense in the book--and house-sit for a year to try it out. While drinking a lot of home-made wine, the author, Antonia Murphy and her husband fall in love with farming and animal husbandry as well as their neighbors in the small, rural town. Quirky, funny and endearing.
$
2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America (completed 1/22/2016). A treatise on poverty after the 1990s dissolution of the welfare system, Kathryn Edin and Luke Shaefer's book explores the root causes of America's extreme poor. They discovered that about 1.5 million households lived on the cash equivalent of $2.00 per person per day. That is about a 70% increase since the 1990s when AFDC (Aid for Families with Dependent Children) was dissolved. The book follows several families struggling in this type of poverty. The striking thing to me was that even though there was a certain amount of pride associated with not applying for food stamps or the limited federal aid available, all of the families had people in them who had worked and wanted to continue working but could not find a job for a salary that would get them off of the $2.00 a day cycle. Very informative, but a slow, data-heavy read.
Bazaar of Bad Dream (Completed 2/6/2016). I've been saving this one up--doling out stories to myself, but finally had to finish it last night. Several of the stories had been previously published and one, "Ur" was re-worked to modernize it, but there were enough new stories to give a number-one fan like myself something to chew on. I particularly enjoyed the very creepy "Bad Little Kid" and the
Dolores Clairborne-like "Drunken Fireworks". King is highly successful in capturing the voice of the average American. This makes reading his stories less of a solitary exercise and more of a conversational one. Keep 'em coming, Mr. King!
Crimson Shore (Completed 2/28/2016). If you enjoy a good detective murder-mystery and you like quirky characters, Alyoisis Pendergast is the pinnacle of the craft. Created by Douglas Preston and Lee Child, he is a quirky, eccentric, loner of a man who still has enough sympathetic qualities for the averager reader to identify with. This is many books into the series, but each would certainly stand alone. In this one, Pendergast needs a little help from his ward to solve the entirety of the crime perpetrated on a little sea-side community. As always, his special skills come into play and it's a pleasure to "watch" him work as he leads the reader inextricably from one clue to the next. In this novel, he and his ward are on their own, (on "vacation") so the reader gets to know each of them a little better. As always, I'm sad when I finish reading because I can hardly wait to see what Pendergast will do next!
Slaughterhouse Five (Completed 3/4/2016). I read this with my son who was studying it for his sophomore English class. I'm sure I've read this book before, but it's been so long I've forgotton most of it. So it goes. (To use the most frequent phrase in the book.) Ostensibly the story of Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut's voice creeps in throughout "I was there . . ." as the story shifts through time and space. It culminates in the bombing of Dresden during WWII as he takes readers to the shelter/prison of a slaughterhouse that may or may not have saved his life. Although I find the whole alien side-trip distracting, Vonnegut is certainly a trip to read. And I mean that in the most psychedelic way possible. Not my favorite author, but an important voice.
Eat Pray Love (Completed 3/15/2016) This book is divided into three parts as Gilbert visits Italy, India and Indonesia. The Italy part was a joy to read (partly because her descriptions of the food and the scenery were so full of joy) and I whizzed through that. As she went through her time in the Ashram, the story became slower, more self-reflective and delved deeper into unravelling what caused her to want to make the trip and change her life. Each section (The book is further divided into 109 min-sections after the prayer beads used in Inda called
japa mala.) became more thoughtful and complex and I often wanted to stop and reflect or re-read. So, ths book took me over a month to read. It was worth it. Gilbert takes you with her, unhesitatingly, on her journey of self-discovery, and what a journey it is!
Dry (Completed 3/15/2016). Poor Augusten Burroughs! This man dealt with a lifetime's worth of crap by the time he was a teenager, so it's no wonder that he ended up with a substance abuse problem. The miracle of it is that it was alcohol and that he managed to kick the habit before it killed him. Oh, and that he was able to write about it with such unflinching honesty and humor. I wanted to go clean his apartment, to hold his head as he came to in the morning, to help him somehow. All I could do was to read, laugh, wince, and groan. If you've ever known an alcoholic or drug user and wondered what was going through their head that made them act so crazy--THIS!
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (Completed 3/20/2016). So clearly, I'm a fan of memoirs and when I saw this one in the
Kansas City Star's list of recommendations, I picked it up. I've never had a chance to see the perspective of a white South African person and I thought it would be interesting. Yes and no. The writing was a bit stilted, but the life this woman lived, with her deeply racist parents in a deeply racist enclave of white expats was certainly revealing. I'm noticing that a lot of what I've been reading has been about the effects of poor parenting on the now-adult children and I need to keep in mind that although memoirs represent a "truth", it is one person's point of view and can't possibly encompass all sides of an issue. I don't think I'd read anything else from this author, but this was certainly an educational read.
Mother, Can you NOT? (Completed 4/28/2016) This is composed mostly from the Instagram account of Kate Siegel and her mother, Kim Friedman. As I am not an Instagram user or follower, I didn't know if I'd enjoy this. Glad to say it was laugh-out-loud funny! What's really hard to accept is that this mother-daughter couple is so very into each other's lives and are not resentful of each other. It gives one a new perspective on what parents should and should not know about their children's lives. Myself, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling my mother an eighth of what Kate does, but their relationship seems to work. Plus, it makes entertaining reading.
The Butterfly Garden (Completed 5/10/2016). Read on my Kindle, this was a first of month deal for Prime members, so I wasn't expecting too much. So glad to be wrong! This was a complex story told by the victim of a mass-murdering serial kidnapper and rapist who "kept it in the family". Identity is clearly of utmost importance to the victim, but she doesn't reveal very much at a time, so you are compelled to stay with her story. Well-written and detailed (but not too much so), this author reminds me of Hitchcock in the way she artfully crafts each scene to give the reader just enough detail to peak their interest, not so much that it will give anything away. I hope she writes more!
Out of the Dust (Completed 5/18/2016). This is on the recomended list for 8th grade English, which I'll be teaching in August, so I thought I'd better get reading! What an unexpected gift this book was! After reading
Of Mice and Men every year for Freshman English and having read other accounts of the Dust Bowl, I was prepared for a dark and gloomy go. What I got however, was Karen Hesse's luxurious poetry using the limited perspective of Billy Jo, a teenager who experiences the devastation first hand. For instance, you get this gem, an entire chapter:
Breaking Drought.
After seventy days
of wind and sun,
of wind and clouts,
of wind and sand,
after seventy days,
of wind and dust,
a little
rain
came.
Lust & Wonder (Completed 5/20/2016). I've read several of Burroughs previous memoirs, so was excited to pick up this one. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed as it mostly covered his recent adulthood and dealt with his (considerable) internal craziness. I guess disappointed is too strong a word. I was expecting the extravagant loopiness of his former memoirs and instead he writes about things that all adults struggle with (work, illness, resisting temptation, communicating with loved ones, ect.) except that he has some additional complications. I'll pick up some of his fiction next time.
The Graveyard Book (Completed 5/26/2016) I love Neil Gaiman and have also read his
American
Gods, the Ocean at the End of the Lane, Smoke and Mirrors, Neverwhere. I tried
Anansi Boys but couldn't get into it. This one was part of my summer reading of middle school texts and I enjoyed it very much. It follows a human boy, Bod, who must shelter at a local graveyard for several years. Gaiman introduces some supernatural elements, but much of the book is a fairly typical coming-of-age story. I don't mean that in a pedestrian way, as I don't know anyone who can't identify with a coming-of-age story. This is magical realism at its best. When the protagonist learns how to "fade", it seems perfectly reasonable that he should be able to do so. My copy also had some lovely, spooky illustrations that helped set the tone for the story. Highly recommended!
Locally Laid (completed 6/5/2016) Non-fiction about a writer and her husband who have a fairly normal life with a little five-hen backyard flock until the hubby decides to become a mid-agriculture chicken farmer for pasture-raised, free-range chickens. His first shipment numbers in the thousands, but each and every chicken gets to go outside for most of the day, hunt and peck and act like a chicken and not a machine. I liked the idea of the book but got a little bogged down in the writer's histrionic account of how her life is falling apart while her husband is working 17-hour days. Get a grip girl! Very informative about mid-ag production, marketing and selling. Enough to convince me that a back-yard flock of five would be just about right.
American Housewife Stories (completed 6/9/2016) Funny little vignettes about how the American
housewife lives, loves and learns. I particularly enjoyed the twisted back-and-forth of "The Wainscotting War" and the bittersweet crazy of "The Fitter". Helen Ellis is a subversive, entertaining writer and she's definitely going on my list of people to read more often.
The Manning Sisters (completed 6/11/2016). Two romance novels in one book, the first dealing with Taylor Manning, the headstrong school-teacher and her on-again-off-again romance with ranch owner Russ. Pretty typical stuff, but tropes exist for a reason, right? I enjoyed the push-me, pull-you enough to read the whole then, then got a little turned off by the second novel, about Taylor's younger sister, Christy who was very wishy-washy and so much of a "Pleaser" that she ignored her own life. Grow a pair! Would probably take another Debbie Macomber novel on vacation or to jury duty. A fast, light read that doesn't require deep mental manipulations. Just suspension of disbelief.
Out of My Mind (completed 6/17/2016). A Sharon Draper novel (trying to catch up on my middle school
reading before I start teaching in August) about a young lady with cerebral palsy. One of my 9th graders read it last year and actually got involved in it, so I wanted to give it a try. Interesting style and an engaging read. Quite a few sad and frustrating bits, but because Draper puts you in the head of a person who cannot speak or move well, you really get the idea of what it might be like to have that experience. It came out in 2012 and references Stephen Hawking's situation so it's a very modern take. Not sure how, or even if, an author would have thought about getting into the brain of someone with that particular disease before the computer technology existed to help them speak. This book gives a voice to a formerly voiceless segment of the population.
Walk Two Moons (completed 6/22/2016). I read this because it was on the middle school reading list, but I'm so glad I picked it up. The cover is not at all compelling, but the story (really stories) inside absolutely are. The narrator is a 13-year-old girl named Sal (short for Salamanca) who has suffered the loss of her mother and as she goes to Idaho with her grandparents to seek her out, reveals another story of her friend Phoebe. Expertly told, with lovely imagery and word play as well as a sense of fun. Laughter and sorrow are intertwined here so well that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. A lovely read.
End of Watch (completed 6/25/2016). I received this around the 15th and held onto it as long as I could because I knew I would rip through it. The third in his
"Finders Keepers" trilogy, this one is arguably the best, but only because I had such an investment in the characters created in the first novel,
Mr. Mercedes. This book went everywhere I went because I didn't want to put it down any longer than I had to. Some of King's best work to date!
The Dead Won't Die (completed 6/28/2016). This is the second in "The Deadlands" series. I read the first one several years ago and found this one in the library. Most of the book follows the main character, Jacob, former Deputy of Arabella. Much of this book refers to the previous
Plague of the Undead, so it was helpful to have read that one. In this one, Jacob and his friends are trying to fight their way out of an advanced society and back to their post-apocolyptic world of Arabella (WHY???). Jacob is clearly a fighting machine and I really felt sorry for him by the end of the book because he never once went to sleep (unless you count him losing consciousness several times) or ate or drank anything during the course of the last third of the novel. I stuck with it, but probably won't read any more of this series though I really like McKinney's style. This was just too exhausting.
My Seneca Village (completed 6/25/2016). A book of poetry and vignettes that imagine the inhabitants of Seneca Village, NY in the 1800s as it was before Central Park was constructed. Inhabited by poor immigrants, freed slaves and emancipated servants, Seneca Village was a community pulling a living from the swampy ground before they were compelled to move by the city for the park project. Each poem portrays a moment of a former inhabitant's life. Each poem is coupled with a brief vignette that helps orient the reader. By the end of the brief volume (83 pages), I had begun to feel like the inhabitants of Seneca were still with us. Lovely work.
The Fireman (completed 7/2/2016). Written by Stephen King's son, this is the first of his books that I've read that is so strongly influenced by his father. I'd previously read
Horns and
Heart Shaped Box, both of which I really enjoyed for their originality and strong voice. I tried NOS4A2, but couldn't get into it. Reading this one was a completely different experience, like seeing a family member's child after a long absence and suddenly seeing how much the two resembled each other. The story was compelling as well. It is an original take on an "end of the world" scenario that makes the reader consider man's relationship with the world around and in him. At 750 pages, I though this would take me a while, but once I picked it up it was hard to put down. Anxiously awaiting his next novel!
Farewell to Manzanar (completed 7/7/2016). More of my middle school reading. I'd been hearing about this book for several years, but didn't know it dealt with Japanese internment camps during WWII. Tangentially, one of my friends in high school had a father/grandfather who was interned in a camp in Idaho where I lived at the time. She revealed this during a study of WWII in our history class and I've not often heard these camps mentioned since. This is an autobiography and the author was seven at the time of her family's internment, but it would certainly be a good companion piece to studying that period of time in history as our crimes against humanity have mostly been omitted or marginalized from American school books. The writing is a little choppy and there is a good deal about Japanese culture that is hinted at but would benefit from further study as it is a complex culture not understood well by most Americans (myself included).
Soldier's Heart ( completed 7/15/2016). More middle school reading, but since I love Gary Paulsen's writing, this wasn't much of a sacrifice. This book follows a single soldier, Charley Goddard, through his enlistment, training and ultimately fighting in the Civil War. This is the second book I've read featuring soldiers from Minnesota which leaves me wondering if they just kept better records or were more interesting people or what, exactly? Goddard was a real person, but Paulsen fictionalized his life to follow his real adventures. A slim 104 pages with large type and margins, this was a one-day read but not necessarily an easy one. Some very difficult topics and an ambiguous ending, but still good reading.
Wonder (completed 7/25/2016). Why, oh why did I wait so long to read this book? It was difficult to put it down to read or sleep because the story was so heart-wrenchingly good and the writing to compelling and present. Told through the lens of most of the main characters, but most notably Auggie Pullman, the story follows a young man with a particular physical deformity (nope, he's not a cyclops, as I thought from the cover) and his reaction to starting main-stream school in the fifth grade after being home-schooled. Palacio truly brings these characters to life and you find yourself rooting for their success. Don't wait to pick this up!
