Review: JAMES

Title: James by Percival Everett

Book Beginnings quote from page 1:

Friday56 quote (from page 22, last page of preview):

Summary:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light. (Publisher)

Review: I loved The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I read it as a kid and when I reread it as an adult. When I heard that Percival Everett had written the Huck Finn story from Jim's point-of-view I knew I had to read James. And I am so glad I did. What a treat. My husband and I listened to the audiobook version together. Immediately after we finished it, we both sat in silence for a few beats before we both exclaimed "wow!"

I think the two quotes I've provided from page one and page 22 set the stage very well. Slaves behaved by a set of rules in their behavior and speech when they interacted with Whites but not when they were alone. After Jim escapes to the island and then down the Mississippi River on the raft with Huck he keeps messing up with his language, not remembering to use slave-speak. This always pulls up Huck short, making him ask what was wrong. "James runs his every public utterance through what he calls his “slave filter,” to make himself sound ridiculous and gullible, to pacify the truculent white people around him" (NYT).

Jim's James' language and knowledge about the classics is astonishing. When he has his fevered dreams due to the snake bite, he imagines conversations with Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke, philosophers from the Age of Enlightenment. James can read and write. His most prized possession is a pencil and later a book in which he can write his thoughts. It is important to write about his life, so it has meaning.

At one point James ends up being sold to a man who has a traveling minstrel troupe. James has a fine tenor voice and is forced to put black polish on his face before the performance. A Black man pretending to be a White man, pretending to a Black man. Preposterous and silly but also deadly serious. The songs they sang were slave ballads that both Don and I sang in elementary school. At this point we turned off the audiobook and gasped with horror to think such songs were still being sung by school kids 100 years after the Civil War and Emancipation!!!

This is my first Percival Everett book but it won't be my last. 

"What sets James above Everett’s previous novels, as casually and caustically funny as many are, is that here the humanity is turned up — way up. This is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful. Beneath the wordplay, and below the packed dirt floor of Everett’s moral sensibility, James is an intensely imagined human being" (NYT). 

What a book. The best I've read all year, maybe all decade. It's a new American classic.

Rating: 5+ stars

-Anne

TTT: Halloween/Scary Stories to Read or Reread

Top Ten Tuesday: 

Halloween/Scary Stories I Want to Read/Reread

I confess I'm not much of a horror genre reader. But this time of the year does make me think I should familiarize myself with a few of the best horror writers and their short stories.

1. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898) I'm actually reading this novella right now. It begins with a group of people sitting around the fire telling ghost stories.

2. The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs (1902) -- A cautionary tale about human desire and unintended consequences.

3. A Ghost Story by Mark Twain (1870) -- A twist on the usual ghost story proving Twain is the master of wit and satire.

4. A Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (1843) -- A narrator tries to convince his reader of his sanity by describing a murder he committed. I read this in junior high, a lot of years ago.

5. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948) -- I read this one in a graphic novel several years ago. It's about a town which hosts a lottery to ensure a good harvest. But the winner is the loser.

6. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates (1966) -- Based on a true story of three murders committed by Charles Schmid.

7. Survivor Type by Stephen King (1982) -- A shipwrecked surgeon resorts to self-cannibalism.

8. The Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (1952) -- A Sci-Fi story with time travel and a plot twist. It sounds like a good one for our age of politics right now.

9. Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl (1954) -- A wife murders her husband and then serves his leg to the detectives as a leg of mutton.

10. The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde (1887) -- A ghost and an American family. This story, which I've read before, is quite humorous.

Have you read any of these? What did you think of it? Can you recommend other Halloween/scary stories you enjoy?

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Positive energy

Mom, age 95, and her cousin-in-law, age 99, reuniting at the Oregon vs. Illinois football game yesterday.

Weather: I am writing this post early because I will be traveling again this weekend. So I can only generally report that the weather has turned, or is turning to fall weather. Cool nights have meant we added another blanket to the bed but still keep the window open. On Tuesday it was sunny during the day but cloudy off in the foothills so we couldn't see Mt. Rainier. Almost time to hunker down. It is good football weather. It was sunny and warm during the football game yesterday. In fact, I worried about getting a sunburn.

Why I'm feeling positive energy about the upcoming election: I hope that my enthusiasm rubs off on you. I know it is hard not to wring our hands and stress out with all negative news about the "horse race." Here are some pieces of information which have helped me calm down a bit.

1. Start here with PoliticsGirl (4 min. 30 sec.) She sums up why Harris is winning.

2. Economy. Here is what Bart Starr, Jr., economist, found. After reading this you will see historically how much better the economy has done under Democrats over Republicans. (With all kinds of cool graphs.) Even Trump said (years ago) “It just seems the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans.”

 3. Enthusiasm is on the Dems side. Remember 2016 when Hillary was doing fine, but Trump had all the enthusiasm on his side? Well, the tables have turned. "Since Kamala stormed onto the scene, the script has flipped.  She has drawn packed crowds everywhere and the enthusiasm has been off the charts.  We are hungry, hungry to save our Democracy.  And Kamala Harris is the perfect messenger.   Trump rallies, on the other hand, have the creepy feeling of a crypt." Need more evidence? Watch Beyonce with Kamala at a rally in Houston.

4. Likeability. The past two elections show that plenty of voters who don’t approve of Trump’s character will support him anyway. But favorability can make a difference in a close race—and Harris‘ rating is much higher than Trump’s. According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, Harris has a net favorability rating of -0.6 percent, while Trump’s is at -8.8 percent. Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, is the only candidate on either ticket with a positive favorability rating.

5. Trends. Not polls but trends predict the winners and Stuart Stevens is very bullish on Harris winning the race. (Vanity Fair, Oct. 23, 2024)

6. Early voting. 61-37% Harris Walz. At least 35% of the GOP voters are crossing over.

And then there are these encouraging helpers.

A. Michelle Obama (start at 12.30 minutes)

B. Meidas Touch: GOP Voters give Trump fatal news about Early Voting Stats.

C. Tim Walz. This guy is a gem. Watch his jogging interview:

D. Endorsements by so many people. I especially like this song, The People's House, which Bon Jovi released with his endorsement. 

 When We Vote We Win!

 

Books: Don and I are currently listening to Shakespeare: The Man Who Paid the Rent by Judi Dench. It is definitely not the usual memoir. It is all about the plays Dench has acted in with insights about acting, other actors, her family, etc. It is wonderful to listen to as she quotes lines from the plays and Shakespeare's sonnets. I'm also listening to Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and reading Orbital by Samantha Harvey.

This past week I finished Dept.of Speculation by Jenny Offill; The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami; and Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout.

I'm gearing up for Novella November.

Science: We took out grandson to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle on Thursday and had so much fun exploring science with him. I close with this funny photo of Ian looking into a parabolic mirror.

-Anne

Review: TELL ME EVERYTHING

Title: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

Book Beginnings quote:

This is the story Bob Burgess, a tall, heavyset man who lives in the town of Crosby, Maine, and he is sixty-five years old at the time we are speaking of him.

Friday56 quote: 

Lucy stopped walking and looked at him. "Oh Bob," she said softly. And the Bob understood. She had heard him. She had absorbed this from him in a way that neither one of his wives ever could.

Summary:

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?” (Publisher)

Review:

Tell Me Everything is the fifth book in the Amgash series, all set in Crosby, Maine. I've met all the main characters before in this or another series by Strout, so it felt a little like meeting old friends. That said, I think it would work well for a stand-alone, too.

Bob Burgess is married to Margaret, his second wife, but it is Lucy who really seems to understand him. He and Lucy go for occasional walks and they talk about everything. At one point Lucy points out she believes that Bob is a sin-eater, or a person who takes on other's sins or problems. It does seem that he is the person who everyone turns to when they have problems and count on him to take care of things. This is a huge burden, of course, and Lucy really understands him. But this fact actually causes new problems.

I really like Elizabeth Strout's writing style and how she allows us to really have a relationship with her characters over many books and series. I purchased this book for my recent trip to the Northeast. I've never been to Maine before so I wanted to read it while I was in the state. Unfortunately, I didn't finish it while I was there but I had started it. It had me at the very first page. After the introduction to Bob Burgess in the first paragraph, the second paragraph begins with this sentence: "Autumn comes early to Maine. By the second or third week of August a person driving in a car might lgace up and see in the distance the top of a tree that has become red." We were in Maine in the fall and we were having this experience.

.-Anne

TTT: How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time

Top Ten Tuesday: 

How My Reading Habits Have Changed Over Time

Or: A Walk Down the Reading Memory Lane

My very own copy of Little Bear. Do you like how I colored all over it?

1. When I was a kid we rarely went to the library nor were there many books in the house. But those we did have I read over and over and over again: Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss and Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik are two I remember clearly.

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I read a whole lot of these abridged classics as a kid.

2. When I was in fourth grade my family moved to Africa. My father was a missionary. Once again we had few books and now no library. Mother's friend, a reader, loaned/gave my older sister and I each a set of books. Mine was the Narnia series. I read those wonderful books many times over the years. I also got a hold of copies of abridged classics like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Huck Finn. All these books have become favorites. I would usually read in bed, or at least lying on my bed, often for hours after lights out!

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Favorite story by far: "Cannibalism in the Cars."

3. During this same time period I learned to really enjoy books read aloud. My mother would read stories out loud to us by candlelight when the power would go out. That happened a lot in Africa. My memories of those times are some of my happiest childhood memories. One book she frequently read from was The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain. If it were Christmas time, she would read Christmas stories she found in magazines to us, like "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson before it was published in book form. We would sit around the dining room table together as she read.

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I loved this book so much, it became one of my favorite books of all time.

4. In sixth grade, still in Africa, I started attending an American-style school. Finally a library and a librarian. I distinctly remember reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle during that time. I also remember talking to the librarian about what to read next. A whole new world was opening up for me, talking about books and getting recommendations.

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There are thousands of editions of this book. I don't think the is the actual book I read, I just tried to find one which had a possible publishing date close to when I was so enthralled by the book.

5. Home from Africa and into junior high school, I continued or became a big reader. I think I always had a book going. I don't remember any particular titles other than 1001 Arabian Nights. I loved that book. My habit of reading in bed was ingrained by now. I don't think I could go to sleep without reading at least a few pages. My reading history was often devoid of many children's classics. For example, I never read The Little House on the Prairie series, Black Beauty, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

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6. In high school my reading fervor slowed down. In fact, I barely even recall reading required books for class. I do remember reading the whole Lord of the Rings series, though, so maybe I just didn't like the word "required." I remember finding Phyllis Whitney romance books at this time. They were pretty tame by today's standards but I found them titillating. Her characters would go as far as "kissing hard."  Ha!

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7. College days were full of assigned books and homework. Pleasure reading was relegated to holidays and summers only. But I would read then. I read the whole Poldark Saga by Winston Graham in response to the PBS series (first aired in 1970s) and many other books often recommended to me by my mother, who seemed to have morphed into a big reader by then, and another friend who was always reading. I could never figure out what to read on my own at that time. I'd often read lying in a lounge chair in the sun, catching rays while I read.

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This book was the beginning book of my reading renaissance. 

8. Early working and  new marriage years I barely read at all. If I did, it was because a book I'd heard about was at the library. I never placed a book on hold or asked librarians for recommendations. Then in 1987ish my sister recommended I read Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. The book set off an explosion in my head and I started reading with a vengeance and haven't stopped since.

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I bought this copy so I could read it to my grandsons since it is no longer available at our library.

9. As a young mother I read a lot of books and went to the library all the time but it was for my children. We always had piles of children's books we were making our way through. Many of these books are now favorites of my grandsons. In fact I looked at one of these books just today, Father Fox's Pennyrhymes by Clyde Watson. We used to quote this book quite often.

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I think I've read all of Kingsolver's books now!

9. In the 1990s I joined two different book groups. One with ladies from my church and the other with ladies I taught with. Suddenly I went from not knowing what to read next to always having at least two books in the queue. I loved it and loved most of the books we read. The church book group started using book kits from the library in the early 2000s which are curated by librarians. Most of these books I'd never heard of before but many became favorites. My other group would pick popular favorites, most of literary merit. Two books I remember reading and loving: Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Since I commuted to work I found audiobooks to be a good source for my reading. In those days audiobooks were on CDs and I became very good at making requests at the library for them and utilizing their hold system. I also started keeping track of what I was reading in little notebooks along with short annotations. 

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John Green is a fantastic writer and I met him at a Librarian Conference before he was so famous.

10. In the early 2000s I hung out with the new high school librarian, Judy. We were always scheming up projects for my classes that would utilize the library books. At one point she planted a seed in my heart. "You know," she said, "you'd make a terrific school librarian." Then she proceeded to water and nurture that seed until it took root. In 2002 I applied and was accepted into a library program for teachers wanting to make the switch from the classroom into the library. It was a year and two summers program. The year I finished it I was ready to tackle a new job as a high school librarian. Once on the job, I realized how deficient my reading background really was and I had to hit the ground running to make up for lost time. I read YA books voraciously and finally made time to read many of the classics I missed growing up. One of my first YA books I read that made a big impression was Looking for Alaska by John Green and a classic I was blown away by was 1984 by George Orwell. If I could, I would listen to audiobooks but sometimes I even found time to read on the job sitting right there at my desk. Lucky me!

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My review drew attention from the publisher and they published it on their website.

11. Sometime in those library-working years I discovered or rediscovered my love of poetry. I became the coordinator for a poetry contest at my school and assisted teachers in getting poetry in to student's hands. The whole process catapulted me in a new direction of reading: poetry. Now I generally always have a poetry collection I'm working on slowly in-between my other books. One of the first poetry books I remember devouring was Teaching With Fire: Poetry Which Sustains the Courage to Teach edited by Sam M. Intrador. Unlike my other books, I rarely read poetry lying down. I will usually read a poem or two during interludes in my daily schedule.

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12. I retired seven years ago and my reading has slowed down a bit, mainly because I rarely read YA titles any longer. I have also joined the classics club and I find myself reading mostly classics or award books these days. I now know where to look for book recommendations, keep track of my reading on Goodreads, write reviews on this blog, still attend two book club meetings a month, and still enjoy listening to audiobooks, though now I listen to e-audiobooks through my phone but they are still checked out from the library. I have raised two daughters who both love audiobooks, too. One of my daughters is in two book clubs now. Like mother, like daughter. I used to wonder what to read next and now I have a TBR with over 200 titles on it. I'm known as the book gal at church and people often ask me for book recommendations, which I'm happy to make. My husband begrudgingly likes to listen to the audiobooks I play during car trips together. He has a great memory and will often reference a book we listened to together. I guess I could create a new adage: "Those who listen to books together will stay together, bonded by literature."  The last book we listened to was James by Percival Everett. OMG that book is good! I still need to read every night before I go to sleep but often can only manage a page or two before I turn out the light. Perhaps it is my age, or my trifocals, but reading in bed is no longer an Olympic sport, like it was when I was young. 

Now you know my evolution as a reader. Sorry I was a little long-winded today!

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- Back Home

Lovely panoramic view taken from the window of our AirBnB in Hope, Maine.

Weather: This past week we've had windy weather with a bit of rain. The wind stripped the Purple Mountain Ash tree and its beautiful leaves blanketed our lawn. The maple is just starting to turn colors and I imagine the next few weeks we'll see her glory.

Highlights from our visit to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, with a special exhibit of Dali paintings.

We're home from our delightful Northeast trip to Massachusetts and Maine: We spent four days in Boston, walking the Freedom Trail, cramming in as many sights as we could manage into our short time there. Then we flew up to Bar Harbor, Maine on a little nine-seater plane and visited Acadia, the easternmost National Park in the US. We weren't alone. A lot of other people were visiting, too, as we all wanted to see the fall colors which were just starting to show. It was lovely though, even if a bit crowded where we were all vying for precious parking places. During our stay in Bar Harbor we stopped at a popular roadside restaurant and had our first lobster dinners, plastic bibs and all! We enjoyed it so much we went back the next day for lobster rolls. Delicious. (I didn't think I liked lobster before this! Ha!) For the last leg of our trip, we drove a rental car down to an AirBnB near Camden, Maine, joining our friends, Ken and Carol, who drove up from their home in New Jersey. Ken was attending a two-week woodworking class and the rest of us explored the region, taking hikes, visiting scenic harbors, and a wonderful botanical garden. The photos show a few highlights of our trip.

Some Boston highlights beginning at the top, left to right: Boston Public Garden; The Freedom Trail marker; Bunker Hill monument; Paul Revere's home and garden; The Embrace (MLK + Coretta Scott King); the grand staircase Boston Public Library; "Make Way for Ducklings" in Boston Commons; Us inside Old North Church listening to National Parks Service App -- Boston National Historical Park (note we are listening together, each with one earpiece); a box full of cannoli's from Mike's Pastries.

Maine: Top row views from Acadia NP; Middle- Lobster dinner; Glorious colors; Don and Andre the Seal in Rockport; Bottom- Rockport Harbor; friends at the Beech Hill Preserve; Rockland breakwater (7/8 of a mile out to a lighthouse. Yes, we walked it!)

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens -- including five giant trolls

 Books read and purchased on the trip:

• A Death in the Family by James Agee. I listened to this classic audiobook on our flight to Boston but didn't finish it until we got home two weeks later. Such a sad story.
• House Lessons: Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister. A book club selection. It was fun to discuss this book with Carol since her daughter is an architect. I finished the book with one day left in Maine before we traveled home.
• Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. I bought this book because it is set in Maine but I barely got it started before we were on our way home. 75% completed.
• How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope edited by James Crews. I bought this little gem in the Beacon Hill Books and Cafe store. I insisted that we include this store as a visit while we explored Boston. I am making my way through it slowly.
• How to Be More Tree: Essential Life Lessons for Perennial Happiness illustrated by Annie Davidson. I make a point of buying something in every indy bookstore I enter, in hopes that I will help keep them afloat. I bought this little, artsy book in Arctic Tern Books in Rockland, Maine.

We left Rockland, Maine, on Thursday Oct. 10th, and started our journey home on another nine-seater plane. It is amazing to see Maine from the air. There are so many islands, bays, and harbors. We left Boston for our trip west later that evening. While we were up in the air I was able to see the aurora borealis. Here is my pretty funky photo taken through the  plane's little window.

Aurora borealis as seen somewhere over the US west of Boston, taken through the airplane window. Photo by A. Bennett

We got into Portland, Oregon around 11:30 PM and spent the night at a hotel near the airport where we'd parked our pickup two weeks earlier. Instead of driving home the next morning, we headed south to Eugene in readiness for the big University of Oregon/Ohio State football game on Saturday. In case you weren't paying attention, it was a very exciting game with seven lead changes. Oregon won the game by one point! It was so fun to be part of the crowd. At one point there was a 360 degree photo taken at the stadium that evening and I was able to find us in the photo.

I am the woman wearing a green hat with a green shirt in the second row of the photo. My sister is next to me in the yellow hat, my husband to my left (We are all making the "O" for Oregon sign with our hands). Mom is next to my sister. She is 95 years old and lasted the whole game and walked home with us afterwards. It was so exciting she didn't want to leave early, like she usually does. My cousin has the green finger pointing at him in the first row and his wife is behind the yellow and green blanket.

I'll close here and save all my thoughts about politics for next week. In the meantime, be sure to vote early, if you can.

Beautiful sunset. Hope, Maine!

The beauty of Maine in the fall. Photo by: C. Wenk.

-Anne

Classics Club Spin #39

I can't believe it is time for another Classics Club Spin.

What is a CC Spin?

• Pick twenty Classic books you still want to read. 
• Post that list, numbered 1-20, on your blog before Sunday, 20th October.
• A number from 1-20 will be announced. 
• Read that book by 18th December.

This year I am participating in the "Novellas in November" challenge so I decided to combine the two events, making all my options novellas or at least under 200 pages. That way I know at least one of my novellas will be a classic!

My CC Spin #39 list:

1. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin (1956, 159 pages)
2. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843, 184 pages)
3. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain (1933, 112 pages)
4. Norwood by Charles Portis (1966, 190 pages)
5. House Made of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday (1968, 185 pages)
6. Silas Marner by George Eliot (1861, 176 pg.)
7. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1937, 175 pages)
8. The Trial by Franz Kafka (1925, 160 pages)
9. The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1966, 160 pages)
10. Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville (1924, 160 pages)
11. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962, 146 pages)
12. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (1912, 142 pages)
13. Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (1886, 128 pages)
14. Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo (1955, 128 pages)
15. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (1937, 107 pages)
16. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1962, 184 pages)
17. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (1922, 152 pages)
18. A Room of One's Own Virginia Woolf (1929, 112 pages)
19. A Room With a View by E.M. Forster (1908, 112 pages)
20. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898, 131 pages)

Who knows? Maybe I will be able to read several of these. I sure hope so!

Update: October 20th...

The lucky number is 

Checking my list...I'll be reading The Postman Always Rings Twice. I checked the library and my hold should be available soon.  In the meantime, I just finished A Christmas Carol and have Giovanni's Room checked out and it's waiting for me on audiobook. So I have other novellas to keep me busy while I wait.

-Anne

Review: HOUSE LESSONS: RENOVATING A LIFE

Title: House Lessons: Renovating a Life by Erica Bauermeister 

Book Beginnings quote: 

Prologue -- The house stood at the top of the hill, ensnarled in vegetation looking out over the Victorian roofs of Port Townsend and beyond, to water and islands, and clouds.

Friday56 quote:

This is what I wanted in my marriage with Ben, I realized: a stone structure built over decades with hands of love; a warehouse that turns into a space of creativity; railroad tracks that become a path to adventure. (p. 48)

Summary:

In this mesmerizing memoir-in-essays, Erica Bauermeister renovates a trash-filled house in eccentric Port Townsend, Washington, and in the process takes readers on a journey to discover the ways our spaces subliminally affect us. A personal, accessible, and literary exploration of the psychology of architecture, as well as a loving tribute to the connections we forge with the homes we care for and live in, this book is designed for anyone who’s ever fallen head over heels for a house. It is also a story of a marriage, of family, and of the kind of roots that settle deep into your heart. Discover what happens when a house has its own lessons to teach in this moving and insightful memoir that ultimately shows us how to make our own homes (and lives) better.

Review: House Lessons was an unlikely book club 'best book.' We all had so much fun with our discussion over this half memoir, part house restoration, part history/information book! All of the ladies in the book commented on the writing and the organization. For example, in the chapter 'Architects and Builders' readers not only meet the professionals the Bauermeiter's hired for their house restoration project but we learn information about famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe and some of their famous projects. We also learned about why there are so many lovely, aging Victorian houses in Port Townsend, a small, artsy town on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. In another chapter, Trash', we learn the house has to be mucked out due to so much stuff left behind. Then we learned about the psychological condition known as hoarding. For a book none of us had ever heard of before we were all pleasantly surprised by this little gem and I think to a woman we would recommend it to you.

-Anne

Novellas in November 2024

 

It’s hard to believe, the hosts are getting ready for the FIFTH year of Novellas in November, the month-long blogger/social media challenge celebrating the art of the short book, hosted by Cathy of 746 Books and Rebecca of Bookish Beck between 1 and 30 November.

 It is also hard to believe this will be my first year joining in the fun of reading short books with others during Novellas in November. For the past several years I've fill up my November reading schedule with nonfiction titles and/or Cybils nominated titles. This year I am taking a break from judging Cybils and don't have many nonfiction titles calling my name. So here I am giving a new challenge a try.

Today I placed several titles on hold at the library and I hope some of them make it my way before November 1st:

• Dept. of Speculation by Offill
• Snow Country by Kawabata
• The Strange Library by Murikami
• The Postman Always Rings Twice by Cain
• Foster by Keegan
• The Turn of the Screw by James
• The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy
• A Christmas Carol by Dickens
• and just today I added, Orbital by Harvey since it is the read-along. 

-Anne

TTT: Books I Read in School and What I Remember About Them

Top Ten Tuesday: 

Books I Was Assigned to Read in School and What I Remember About Them.

I honestly remember very few books I was required to read in school. I do remember reading three but the details are pretty fuzzy:

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. I am not sure I read this one very well since I had it in my mind until a recent reread (see below) that it was Daisy who died not Gatsby. (High School)

Animal Farm by Orwell. I have the vaguest recollection of mean animals marching around the farm bossing all the other animals around. (Junior High School)

Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. I remember liking this book and the details about the old man catching the huge fish but then the sharks eating it before he could get back home. I recently reread it and my memory was pretty accurate. (Junior High School)

When I became a high school librarian in 2005, I realized what a poor literary education I had. So I set about the task of reading all the required novels in our textbook room, which English teachers assigned to their students. I didn't finish the task but here are the books I did manage to read, trying to catch up with what I missed while in school myself:

A Brave New World by Huxley --- I was shocked at how much sex (or at least references to sex) this book contained and at all the racism toward indigenous man. Why is this book still assigned for classes? Not a favorite.

Lord of the Flies by Golding. --- Kids complained bitterly about this book, but I found it to hold such truth about the nature of man that I think about it often, even today. For example, the mob on January 6th that stormed the Capitol, were under the spell of group think. In the book the book the boys turn wild in short order. I've noticed how often this is true today, too. Glad I read it.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee. --- Can you believe I hadn't read this book until 2005? It is a favorite and now I've reread it several times. Love it!

Bless Me, Ultima by Anaya. --- One of my first introductions to magical realism. This book assignment caused a big ruckus by parents who didn't want their kids reading it. But I was transported by the prose and highly recommend it to you. Loved it.!

As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. --- One kid warned me off reading this book, telling me how awful it was. Faulkner's stream-of-consciousness makes for odd reading, for sure. I agree with the student. Yuck!

The Outsiders by Hinton. --- Kids were assigned to read this book in junior high so I wanted to read it to catch up. Powerful story written by S.E. Hinton when she was a teen. Very good.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Twain. --- I read an abridged version of this book when I was in elementary school. I had really fond memories of it. I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook of the whole book as an adult. This book, for all the obvious reasons, was rarely assigned by teachers for classes. I think it that is a pity. Twain is so witty and if taught right it has a powerful message. 

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. --- I have a lot of trouble reading plays. Then it dawned on me that I could listen it and let voice actors bring the story alive. They did and I loved it anew. This play was assigned to 9th graders. Every year students were expected to read something by Shakespeare (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream) but this is the only one I got to. Sigh.

Fahrenheit 451 by Bradbury.--- Burning books. Oh my. Bradbury was looking both back and forward in this powerful book.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston. --- This is a good audiobook since Hurston wrote it in Black, Southern vernacular. It is difficult to read. I would tell the kids to read it out loud to themselves to help them understand it. The audiobook solved that problem for me and I enjoyed it.

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald. --- When I finally got around to reading Gatsby as an adult I was shocked by it. I had so many details muddled in my brain. This is the novel that ushered in the Jazz Age and is also often sited as the number one book of all times. For those reasons alone, I recommend it.

Frankenstein by Shelley. --- I just read Frankenstein last year. It is another book I thought I knew better than I did. I had seen so many movies made from it. Not a favorite, but I'm glad I finally got around to reading it.

Great Expectations by Dickens. --- Sometimes I am shocked by how much a book has influenced popular culture and language. This is one of those books. Another book I was glad I read FINALLY!

Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. --- I can't remember if this book was in our textbook room in class sets or not. It should have been if it's not. This story is like reading history and should be required to understand our past. Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men was required reading and was very popular with students. I think that had something to do with how short it was.

Things Fall Apart by Achebe. --- things certainly do fall apart when countries think they can transport their culture and impose it on another culture. This book contains a powerful message, if only we'd listen.

1984 by Orwell. --- Oh man. This book should be required reading for humans in 2024. It is so prescient. Doublethink: "Freedom is slavery"; "Ignorance is strength"; "War is peace." When Trump said in a speech he'd be a dictator on day one, believe him. He is taking his ideas straight from this dystopian novel. I hope teachers did a good job teaching this book at our school. But I never heard how students felt about it.

-Anne

Review: TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM

Title: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

Book Beginnings quote:

Whenever I think of my mother, I picture a queen-sized bed with her lying in it, a practiced stillness filling the room.

Friday56 quote:

Nana was the first miracle, the true miracle, and the glory of his birth cast a long shadow. I was born into the darkness that shadow left behind.

Summary:

Gifty is a fifth-year candidate in neuroscience at Stanford School of Medicine studying reward-seeking behavior in mice and the neural circuits of depression and addiction. Her brother, Nana, was a gifted high school athlete who died of a heroin overdose after a knee injury left him using pain killers. Her suicidal mother is living in her bed. Gifty is determined to discover the scientific basis for the suffering she sees all around her.

But even as she turns to the hard sciences to unlock the mystery of her family's loss, she finds herself hungering for her childhood faith and grappling with the evangelical church in which she was raised, whose promise of salvation remains as tantalizing as it is elusive. Transcendent Kingdom is a deeply moving portrait of a family of Ghanaian immigrants ravaged by depression and addiction and grief--a novel about faith, science, religion, love. 

Review:  Oh man, this book brought out the high school teacher in me. First I thought I'd want to assign this to my Health-class students so we could talk about many aspects about addiction. Then I thought it would be an excellent resource for my Sociology class so we could study the importance of friendship, what it is like being an immigrant in a foreign land, and the importance of community. Oh, and then it would work for a Psychology class to talk about depression and mental resilience. Lastly I thought it would probably be an excellent book club selection especially for my church-oriented club. There is so much about faith and spirituality in it. And since I am retired and no longer teach social sciences,  I will see if I can talk my book club into reading it. There is so much to discuss! 

Wow, what a story.

My rating: 5 stars

-Anne

TTT: Bookish brags and confessions

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Brags and Confessions --- What I have and haven't read!

1. This summer the New York Times published a list of the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century, the list was curated by 504 literary luminaries. I counted and discovered I've only read 38 of the books on the list (two more than I said on the blogpost.) As a voracious reader this seemed like a very low number to me.

2. Then several weeks after the above list was published, the New York Times published a list of the Top 100 Favorite books of the 21st Century, as recommended by readers. This list I have read many more books, I think 73, which feels much better to me.

3. Reader's Digest recently published a list of the 100 best books. I've read 66 of them. Several of the titles are shocking to me, especially in their placement on the list. But it is a list to give me ideas what to read next.

4. Penguins Classics 100 Books Everyone Should Read. Oh, oh. Back to a lower number, only 40 read, many I haven't heard of before which is odd for the books being classics.

5. 20+ Books every high schooler should read before college. Whew. Better. I've read 16 of them, of course, I'm way past college age so I had a head start.

6. Time Magazine's 100 Best YA Books. I've read 66 which is both a brag and a confession. As a teen librarian I think I should have read more but I have been retired for seven years. 

7. Scholastic's 100 Must-Read Children's books. Hmm. The list didn't have pictures. I think I've only read 50 of these books but it may be more. I just didn't know for sure without a visual confirmation.

8. Werd.com Ten Best Sci-Fi novels. Unbelievably I've read 4 of them! I thought it would be just one.

9. The 22 books people brag about reading but they really haven't read them (In other words, lie about reading.). (Buzzfeed.) I really have read thirteen of these books. I'm not lying.

10. New York Times Top Ten Books of 2023. I've read 2 1/2. I didn't finished Bee Sting and only read two of the others. One I liked. The other I didn't. Ha! I'm ending on a confession.

-Anne