Review: THE MIGHTY RED (+Friday56 LinkUp)

Title: The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich

Book Beginnings quote: 

On a mild autumn night in the Red River Valley of North Dakota, Crystal pulled herself up behind the wheel of an International side-dump, steered out of the sugar processing plant, and started her haul.

Friday56 quote:

As they drove across the river, Gary's fingers tightened on the steering wheel and his mind kept flowing the wrong way.

Summary: The setting of Erdrich's newest novel, The Mighty Red, is in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and a farming community whose livelihood revolves around the sugar beet during the Great Recession of 2008. And like the path of the mighty Red river, the story's path is also meandering and expansive.

At its core the story revolves around a love triangle between Kismet Poe, of the Ojibwe tribe and brilliant beyond the confines of their small community, and two boys -- Gary Geist, the high school's football star and son of one of the biggest sugar beet farmers in the valley, who is handsome and popular; and Hugo, a red-haired homeschooled boy who is bookish and non athletic. When Gary proposes marriage to Kismet his mother, Winnie, is thrilled. Crystal, Kismet's mother is shocked and upset. On the day before her wedding two things happen: Kismet "falls" into the Red River and has to be rescued and her father skips town with all the money from the church's building fund. Neither are a good sign. Indeed the new marriage is off to a very bad start.

Review: I am a Louise Erdrich fan. As in all her other books she includes in The Mighty Red indigenous characters into her plot. These characters grapple with how to cope with the modern world while trying to incorporate and keep alive their own values and heritage. At one point, for example, Crystal, who now is destitute since her husband ran off not only with the church's money but with their family money as well, makes herself a meal of lambsquarters, one of the most nutritious plants on earth. While at the same time the Geists are spreading poison all over their sugar beet field to get rid of the same plant.

The story indeed meanders around, back and forth in time to a year before when something happened to Gary and his football friends, and even further back in history to the time there were so many buffaloes that it took three days traveling on the train to pass them all. Erdrich never misses a chance to educate her readers about issues related to the management of our land,  and our tattered bond to Mother Earth. In the Mighty Red she deals largely with the way farmers use of pesticides on monoculture plants like the sugar beet is poisoning the land, and the effects of fracking is poisoning the water. Fortunately, these details are delivered with a handful of satire and humor so they are bearable to read about. In fact, many parts of the story are downright funny, especially the details that emerge about Kismet's father.

I really liked this summary of the book here where the book is compared to a quilt made of Kismet's old t-shirts:

The bustling and brightly coloured heterogeneity here is mirrored in The Mighty Red at large. Following a variety of perspectives, it is part romcom, part overblown family saga, part cli-fi warning, part absurdist heist, part small-town satire, all tumbling out amid the turmoil of the 2008 financial crash.

And just to make it a little bit more fun, there is a ghost.

My rating; 4.5 stars.

Sign up for The Friday56 on the Inlinkz below. 

RULES:

*Grab a book, any book

*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader (If you want to improvise, go ahead!)

*Find a snippet, but no spoilers!

*Post it to your blog and add your url to the Linky below. If you do not add the specific url for your post, we may miss it! 

*Visit other blogs and leave comments about their snippets. Expand the community. Please leave a comment for me, too!  

Also visit Book Beginnings on Friday hosted by Rose City Reader and First Line Friday hosted by Reading is My Super Power to share the beginning quote from your book.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

TTT Tweak: Books I was reading the last week of January for the past ten years

Top Ten Tuesday---I'm on my own this week with this tweak:
Books I was reading the last week of January for the past ten years

This is a fun activity for me -- to look back on what I was reading during approximately the same date for the past ten years.  In one case, I wrote the review almost a year after I read the book because I attended an author event about the book at that time.

January 25, 2025 --Currently reading:
Playground by Richard Powers
On the list of the top 50 books of 2024.

2024
The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
A book club selection and a favorite book read in 2024.

2023
I Hope This Finds You Well: Poems by Kate Baer
Erasure poems. Very clever.

2022
Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer
Nonfiction. Very helpful.

2021
The Radium Girls: The Scary But True Story of the Poison That Made People Glow In the Dark by Kate Moore
I read this YA version as a Cybils judge and then a few months later the adult version for book club. This version was better.

2020
Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of the "Children's Ship" by Deborah Heiligman
Another YA/MG nonfiction book read as a Cybils judge.

2019
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
Another book club selection. Club members got to choose which of the author's books they wanted to read and I picked this one, set in Alaska.

2018
Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks : A Librarian's Love Letters and Break-Up Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence
As a newly retired librarian I appreciated this book.

2017
The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
The third book on this list which was a book club selection. 

2016
Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
I had just learned this book won a Printz Honor for the year 2016.

2015
The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone by Adele Griffin
A very creative YA novel made to seem like it was true.

And one more submission, just because I got off on my counting and I mentioned this book up top --

2014 (but reviewed in 2015)
The Boys in the Boat: Nine American and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
A spectacular nonfiction book. Not to be missed if you like read narrative nonfiction.

A few of these books, like A Covenant of Water and The Boys in the Boat are actually personal favorites. Most of the others are just books I happened to be reading in January. I was shocked to see that six of the titles were nonfiction but two of those were related to my work as a Cybils judge in the MG/YA Nonfiction category, which helps explain why January has been nonfiction heavy. Read my reviews if you are interested in learning more about what I thought of any of the books. 

-Anne

Review: THE RED ADDRESS BOOK

Title: The Red Address Book by Sofia Lundberg, translated by Alice Menzies

Book Beginnings quote:

The saltshaker. The pillbox. The blood-pressure monitor in its oval plastic case. The magnifying glass and its red bobbin-lace strap, taken from a Christmas curtain, tied in three fat knots. The phone with the extra-large numbers. The old red-leather address book, its bent corners revealing the yellowed paper within. 

Friday56 quote:

I wanted to write to Gösta. Wanted to tell him everything he was longing to hear. But I couldn't. I couldn't manage even a few nice words about the city I had come to hate.

Summary:

Meet Doris, a 96-year-old woman living alone in her Stockholm apartment. She has few visitors, but her weekly Skype calls with Jenny—her American grandniece, and her only relative—give her great joy and remind her of her own youth.

When Doris was a girl, she was given an address book by her father, and ever since she has carefully documented everyone she met and loved throughout the years. Looking through the little book now, Doris sees the many crossed-out names of people long gone and is struck by the urge to put pen to paper. In writing down the stories of her colorful past—working as a maid in Sweden, modelling in Paris during the 30s, fleeing to Manhattan at the dawn of the Second World War—can she help Jenny, haunted by a difficult childhood, unlock the secrets of their family and finally look to the future? And whatever became of Allan, the love of Doris’s life? (Publisher)

Review: I am always predisposed to like books I select to read, especially ones being read for book club. The Red Address Book, written by Sofia Lundberg a Swedish author, is no exception. I launched into reading the book on the airplane flying to California for New Year's Day. In the beginning I was charmed by the simple story of an aged woman reflecting on her adventurous, yet sad life. Many of the chapters are headed by names of individuals written in her red address book now crossed out with the word DEAD marked nearby. Doris is 96 when she decides to write down the stories from her life for her only relative, a niece in California. 

My mother, age 95, also writes her life-stories and shares them with her friends and family. I completely understand the impulse to share memories while one has a chance. Unfortunately as I read on I found myself less and less charmed by the stories, finding most to be unbelievable. I'm guessing I will be in a minority at the club meeting, though. I am often at odds with others when it comes to liking vs not liking books. In fact just last week my daughter and I were talking about a book she was reading but she warned me that I'd probably not like it because it wasn't literary enough for me. I knew what she meant. I tend to appreciate books that are really well-written, in some ways the plot is less important to me than the writing. We'll see what others think on Tuesday.

In the meantime, have you read The Red Address Book? What did you think of it.

My rating: 2.5 3 stars.

I updated my rating to 3 stars after attending book club. One point I was unaware of was the author, a Swede, had an aunt Doris whom she adored visiting. After Doris' death Sofia found her old address book and wondered about the life of an aunt she loved but didn't know her whole story. Sofia herself left home at age fourteen to model in Paris, which was another plot point in the book. Lastly, in book club we reminisced about friends/family who led full and exciting lives before we met them. One lady from our church, also named Doris, was a real character. Before any of us knew her, she lived a wild life in Hollywood where she met many movie stars. That was a fun discussion.

-Anne

Review: THE OPTIMIST'S DAUGHTER

The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty is a short novel, divided into four parts, set in Mount Salus, Mississippi.

 

Part 1:

Judge McKelva goes with his young 2nd wife, Fay, and his adult daughter, Lauren, to see an ophthalmologist in New Orleans because of sudden onset of vision problems caused by a retinal tear. The judge insists that the doctor do the surgery himself instead of waiting for a specialist to arrive in a few days. The surgery is successful but the recovery is grueling. It requires weeks of lying still and flat with the eyes covered. The judge, a great reader, is distraught by his inability to do anything at all and slips into a despondent depression. Lauren understands his maliase and tries to perk him up by reading aloud to him from a Dickens novel. Fay, on the other hand, is upset because she is missing Mardi Gras and wants to celebrate her birthday. In her irritation she attempts to rouse her husband by pulling him from his hospital bed. She isn't successful but the damage is down. The judge dies, probably from a heart attack.

Part 2: 

The two women bring the body of the judge back to Mount Salus and are met by McKelva friends and family to help prepare for and to attend the funeral. Fay doesn't feel accepted by these people and is irritated by their presence. On the day of the funeral, however, her whole family, the Chisoms, arrives from Madrid, Texas. The difference in social class between the two families is very apparent and the ruckus this family causes provides the comedy in the midst of the tragedy. Lauren is mortified that her father ever associated with these people. Fay makes sure that the judge is laid to rest in the new part of the cemetery, not in the plot with his first wife, even though it overlooks the new freeway and there are plastic poinsettias on the graves.

Part 3: 

Fay returns to Texas with her family for a few days. Lauren is alone in her childhood home for the first time in her life. She overhears some of her mother's friends making fun of Fay and her family, and she surprises herself that she feels the need to step in a correct the record and to stop the chatter. Later Lauren finds some of her mother's papers, photos, mementos. She thinks back on her mother's illness which led to blindness and alienation, and eventually an early death. She also allowed herself to reflect on her own situation -- losing her husband Phil in WWII and ruminating about what his life could have/should have been like. 

Part 4:

That night Lauren wakes from a dream and realizes it was a memory of the train trip she took with Phil from Chicago to Mount Salus for their wedding. At one point they looked out the window at the river and could see the point at which the Ohio River joined the Mississippi River, becoming one. "All they could see was sky, water, birds, light, and confluence. It was the whole morning world. And they themselves were a part of the confluence" (159-160). Even though Phil was no longer with her, he could still tell her of her life which was a continuity of its love. This memory soothed her. Later Fay returns and the two women quarrel over a wrecked breadboard, a gift from Phil to her mother, and bicker over who killed the judge. Was it Lauren with her insistence that the judge lie still to the point of death or was it Fay who wanted him to quit his old man foolishness and get up. In the end Fay, with all her silly and inane ways, gets the house. And Lauren, by ending the fight and retaining her honor and her values, gets to keep her dignity and the promise that her memories still survive and can soothe her.

The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1973. I wanted to read it for that reason alone. As I started the book I could actually feel my eyes rolling wondering why the committee picked a book with such a downer topic and a slow pace. Then, around part 3, I came to recognize the book held some universal truths about society, about class, and poverty and old money. I chided myself for being too quick to judge the book before I even finished it. In the end I found the book very touching and, this won't surprise any of my readers, I cried several tears.

My rating: 4 stars.

-Anne

TTT: Most recent additions to my TBR shelf

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My TBR Shelf

Explanations below.

1. Not Like Other Girls by Adamo -- Added last night because I saw it was a finalist for the Morris Book Award which goes to the best YA Debut novels. (2024)

2. Shackled by Cooper --- Added last night because it is one of the finalists for the YALSA Best Nonfiction Award to be announced the end of the month. (2024)

3. Salvation Canyon by Rosenthal -- I saw it on a list of books read by a friend on Goodreads. It is a survival story in Joshua Tree NP. My husband and I always joke about a sign we saw when we were visiting Joshua Tree NP which said "Don't Die Here Today!" Sounds like good advice. (2020)

4. Fourteen Days by Atwood -- Added because I am a Margaret Atwood (Handmaid's Tale) fan. (2024)

5. The Unselected Journals of  Emma M. Lion by Brower --- A book blogger did such a good review of this one I decided I need to read it. (2019)

6. Now in November by Johnson -- A past Pulitzer Prize winner that sounds like one I should read. (1934)

7. Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth): a Memoir by Marcus Zusak -- I love The Book Thief so I want to read about the author. (2025)

8. The Inland Island by Johnson --- Same author as Now in November. A book vlogger said this was one of his favorite nonfiction reads of 2024. (1969)

9. Of Time and Turtles by Montgomery -- I really liked Sy Montgomery's nonfiction book about octopuses. This one promises to be just as good. (2023)

10. Four Thousand Paws: Caring for the Dogs of the Iditarod by Morgan -- an impulse add to my list. I like dogs and I'm interested in how they keep the dogs sae on such a long run through ice and snow. (2024)

11.  The Dream Hotel by Lalami -- I added this book to my list two weeks ago of  most anticipated books of the first half of 2025. It is one on that list I'm fairly sure I will actually try to read. (2025)

12. Memorial Days by Brooks -- I read Horse last year written by Geraldine Brooks. While she was writing that book her husband unexpectedly died. I was so taken by the notion of how on earth did she finish the book with that happening in her private life. Now I can read about how she did it. (2025)

13. Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green -- I read everything this author writes and have already got in line for the book at the library even though it isn't published yet. (2025)

-Anne

Sunday Salon -- So much crying

Sunrise with tip of Mt. Rainier from Eatonville, Washington

Weather: Cold and clear. Temperatures at night are below freezing.

So much crying: Last week I spent just about every day crying, often to the point of feeling crummy probably from dehydration. Why so many tears? Good question. I am not sure. I have some theories ---

• Grief is For People -- I read this memoir by Sloane Crosley, who is devastated due to the death of her friend by suicide. For some reason I was not prepared by how hard this book would hit me, causing me to think of suicides of former students and the tragic death of a family member. I cry a lot when I read but not usually this much. This book about grief was clearly one of my crying triggers. 
• A favorite quote: "And then because I cannot call you home, I call it [grief] home. I open my eyes and in a flash it come back to me, zipping itself to my edges, bobbing between my fingers. It's made a real life for itself here. Oblivious to its own power, it snores sweetly on my chest, this outline of a woman whose time has not yet come."
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman -- the next day I finished this little gem which "caused me to laugh continuously," as author Ann Patchett said of it, "except for the parts that made me cry." The ending was especially poignant thinking about how the mother parents her adult child right up to the time of death. So sweet and so touching. 
• Favorite quote: “And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same. To say, I understand how hard it is to be a parent, a kid. To say, Your shell stank and you’re sad. I’ve been there.”
• "Kimberly Akimbo" -- Last Sunday Carly took me to see a play, "Kimberly Akimbo", in Seattle. It is about a girl who is aging very, very fast due to a genetic condition and at 16-years she has  probably just about lived to the limit of her life span. But she wants to be normal, to go on adventures, to experience life. Carly and I sat next to each other, both of us crying. I felt like sobbing but somehow kept myself from completely falling apart. We went out to dinner after the show and both of intentionally chugged glasses of water to ward off that icky dehydration feeling.
• 
  
  
  
• On reflection I wonder if my many tears are a symptoms of something else. Even though I went through menopause YEARS ago, I wonder if what I am experiencing is partially hormonal. When one cries during commercials on TV there has to be some reason, right? Or what about the low-grade depression I seem to be experiencing due to the upcoming presidency of Trump. I still can barely watch the news or read anything political. About the only channel I can trust for my political news is Comedy Central. I can only stand to hear the bad news if it arrives with a joke. I don't plan on watching the inauguration on Monday, but I will have my TV on all day set to QVC or Comedy Central, so his ratings will go down. (Tiny acts of deviance.)
• Oh, and the death of Jimmy Carter. He was really, really a fine man. His tributes make me cry for what we have lost. 
• Beauty -- unusual sunrises and sunsets (see photos above and below) this week and set me to crying for joy. Below is the sunset we saw in Seattle after we left our show. It was so bright it looked like the sky was on fire.

Sunset over Elliott Bay as viewed by the Seattle Convention Center.

Books finished this year so far:

• The Red Address Book by Lundberg-- a book club selection.
• The God of the Woods by Moore -- a mystery set in the Adirondacks. Don and I listened to the audiobook together. It has a ton of characters and kept up us guessing to the end.
• Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley -- a memoir. See note above.
• Sandwich by Catherine Newson -- a novel. See note above.
• The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan -- a nonfiction journal about the author's experiences bird watching in her backyard.

Currently reading:

• The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty. A classic. 40% complete. Print.
• The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. a favorite author. 66% complete. Audiobook.
• Sense and Sensibility by Austen. Part of the Austen25 project. My intro post here.

Blog posts:

• Review: Book of Doors (my last review for books read in 2024)
• A look back at 2024 through my 2024 Sunday Salon posts.
• TTT: The Most Anticipated Books of 2025
• My Year in Books -- a meme
• 2025 Reading Goals and Challenges
• Austen25: An Austen Reading Project

Not all tears, there is this --

The grandsons went up the Space Needle today with my daughters. Mt. Rainier is in the background.

My daughter said they spent a lot of time laying on the glass floor of the Space Needle.

...and photo-bombing sisters taking selfies.

-Anne

Review: SANDWICH (+ discussion questions)

Sandwich by Catherine Newman

Harper, 2024. 240 pages.

My book club meets next week. At our monthly meeting we have to select new books for upcoming meetings. Sandwich by Catherine Newman was suggested by one member as one she thought we could all relate to -- women sandwiched between our parents and young adult children; women who have experienced menopause symptoms and now are coping with some of the side-effects of aging. Plus, she said, it is funny.

Now funny is the part I was most interested in. Life hasn't been terribly funny the past few months with the disastrous election results, the abrupt death of a friend, and a cancer diagnosis of another. I craved laughter so I made Sandwich a reading priority before our meeting wanting to make an informed decision about it.

The publisher describes the book as "a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch and learning to let go as Rocky [the mom] navigates hormonal changes, past memories, and the acceptance of life's changes." 

Ann Patchett, a favorite author, describes Sandwich as "joy in book form. I laughed continuously, except for the parts that made me cry." I am pretty sure that was my experience with the book, too. I laughed and cried in equal measure. In fact, I found the ending so poignant it felt like I was crying for hours, and probably felt crummy after finishing it just from dehydration. I definitely hope we read this as a club. I believe all of us will have a lot to discuss. 

Discussion question possibles:

• Let's talk about secrets. What were the big secrets in the book? How did they impact the characters? Have you ever held a secret that impacted your health or your relationships?
• Let's talk about parenting. What aspects of mothering did you relate to? Do you think Rocky is/was a good mother?
• Let's talk about relationships. What did you like about Rocky and Nicky's relationship? Their relationship with their children? Parents?
• Let's talk about food? How did the family celebrate with food? Can you relate to their experiences with food? How? 
• Let's talk about the term "sandwich."
• Let's talk about the characters. Which character was your favorite? Why? 
• Let's talk about health and aging. Do you think Rocky overreacted to her parent's aging health? Why do you think her parents didn't share what was happening with their only daughter. Have you experienced anything similar in your family? Do you think the mental health issues were handled accurately?
• What did you think of the book? How would you describe it to a friend who hasn't read it? 
• What are a few of your favorite quotes? Here are a few of mine---
• “And this may be the only reason we were put on this earth. To say to each other, I know how you feel. To say, Same. To say, I understand how hard it is to be a parent, a kid. To say, Your shell stank and you’re sad. I’ve been there.”
• “Life is a seesaw, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced: living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will, of course. You have to.”
• “But grief was like a silver locket with two faces in it. I didn’t know what the faces looked like, but it was heavy around my neck, and I never took it off.”

I thought the summary in the NYT review of Sandwich was so perfect and so funny, I'll repeat it here for you:

If this story sounds privileged, well, it is; if you’re looking for wars, drug cartels or Grisham-level plot, Newman is not your go-to. But if you want to laugh out loud, tear up, and rush to pull out a book in the 35 seconds between subway stops, this sweet, savory, tenderhearted Sandwich fits the bill, and goes down like (bread and) buttah. (NYT, June 21, 2024)

My rating: 5 stars.

-Anne

Austen25: Sense and Sensibility -- I Begin

Joining Austen25 to honor a favorite writer as we near her 250th birthday, this month we are reading Sense and Sensibility, Austen's first published work. I joined the project just this week, so I am behind and will have to play catch up in order to finish the book by the end of the month.

My plan is to read a set number of pages a day. The edition I am reading was published by Barnes and Noble Classics in 2004 with an introduction by Laura Engel. It has 312 pages. Dividing up the days left means I need to read a minimum of 21 pages each day through the end of the month. Doable.

In the introduction, Laura Engel describes Sense and Sensibility as "a coming-of-age novel and also a work that chronicles Austen's own 'coming of age' -- her development as a writer" (xi). When Austen began working on "Elinor and Marianne" she was only twenty and surely thought she had the possibility of marriage and motherhood ahead of her. By the time the book was finally completed fifteen years later, her circumstances were quite different. She'd been disappointed in love, lost her father, moved two times and now lived in Chawton with her mother and sister, Cassandra. 

In the early parts of the novel, Marianne and Elinor, though close-knit sisters, struggle to communicate openly with one another. In Austen's world women were not encouraged to reveal too much about themselves. Rather they had to "perfect the art of innuendo, leading questions, and disguised sentiments. The slippery properties of language became a heroine's greatest weapon" (xiii). I'm only on page 42 and already I've seen example after example of the ways women attempted to find out information without asking directly or being very frank with one another. Throughout the story, Engels tells us, women characters had trouble understanding Elinor and Marianne and this was likely due to the misuse or misunderstanding of language. One has to wonder if this is the way people misunderstood Austen herself. 

Austen played a lot with the theme of both sense and of sensibility throughout the book. It is generally thought that Elinor is full of sense, leading with her head. While Marianne, who is much more emotive than her older sister, always seemed to lead with her heart. But other characters show off their sense and sensibility, too. "It is the characters with the least sense who got the most airtime and those with the most important news who are ignored" (xx). For example, Willoughby makes fun of the more staid Col. Brandon by saying "whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to" (42). And Marianne recognizes her faux-pas in speaking too frankly and openly. "I have erred against every common-place notion of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been reserved" (40).

This is a reread of Sense and Sensibility for me. I first read it in 2013 where I decided to read and write a reflection on my blog once a week after reading a minimum of 50 pages. I invited other readers to join me, but no one did and I think few people even read my weekly posts about the book. I am posting links to them below, in the event you want to take a peek at any of them. For each entry I summarized the action from that week's reading, reacted to something surprising in the text, and then posed a question which sometimes I attempted to answer. This process of summary and questioning helped me read the book to its completion. A year earlier I had attempted to read Emma and found myself floundering until I changed tactics and challenged myself to stay on a reading/examining schedule. If you find yourself having a similar problem you may want to adopt a similar tactic to read the Austen or other classic books.

• Sense and Sensibility Week #1, May 2013. 
• S & S, Week #2, May 2013.
• S & S, Week #3, June 3, 2013.
• Week #4 update, June 11, 2013
• S & S #5 Update, June 18, 2013
• Final Sense and Sensibility Update, June 25, 2023.

Oddly, in all my updates from 2013, I never mentioned the introduction by Laura Engel. I bet I didn't even read it then. Since that time I find myself always reading the introductions included with classic book editions, finding insights I know I would have missed without them. One more piece of advice from me to you -- read the introductions. Tee-hee.

Now I am off to read my daily page installment.

-Anne 

Nonfiction Review: GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE

Title: Grief is For People by Sloane Crosley

Book Beginnings quote: 

All burglaries are alike, but every burglary is uninsured in its own way.

Friday56 quote: 

During the closing lecture of the festival, a Scottish author winds down her reading with a folk song about the sea...She lilts all over the stage. I imagine this moment holding me up on its hip, bouncing me. Wave goodbye to Russell! Say: Bye-bye, Russell! I can feel my heart pounding in my neck. Salt water drips down my face and I scratch my pinkie so hard, I nearly break the skin.

Summary: Following the death of her closest friend, Sloane Crosley explores multiple kinds of loss in this disarmingly witty and poignant memoir. (Publisher)

Review: This book wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It took me several chapters and a major thought-realignment to get my brain around the reality of the book not the imaginary one I had worked out in my head. I was expecting a self-help book for those coping with grief. This is NOT that book.

This is a memoir about friendship and death. This is a hard book, one which consolidates the truth -- Everyone grieves in different way and there is no timeline on that grief. The last chapters were especially poignant as Sloane Crosley gains a bit of distance from her grief and is able to take a look at it with a bit of objectivity. A bit.

When Sloane's friend, Russell, dies by suicide, she is left to grapple with her grief alone. She loosely follows the Kubler-Ross stages of grief for her format: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance as she outlines what her life was like after his death. In the middle of all this, a pandemic descends on the world and she has to cope with it, too, just like we all did. See why I say it is a hard book?

I admit I spent the whole last half of the book crying -- not for the death of Russell, I didn't know him. But for the death of D, who I did, and for all those people, like Sloane Crosley, who are forced to traverse alone in an unknown world known as "Grief World." It reminded me of this quote from another book Hum If You Don't Know the Words:

Only after I had learned those boundaries and generalities of my grief was I able to venture further into the mountains and valleys, the peaks and troughs of my despair. And as I traversed them-breathing a sigh of relief thinking that I'd conquered the worst of it-only then would I finally arrive at the truth about loss, the part no one ever warns you about: that grief is a city all of its own, built high on a hill and surrounded by stone walls. It is a fortress that you will inhabit for the rest of your life, walking its dead-end roads forever. The trick is to stop trying to escape and, instead, to make yourself at home. (Hum If You Don't Know the Words, 320).

There were two excerpts which touched me specifically. Let me see if I can find them...

“But there was never going to be a version of the story in which it wasn't my missing jewelry and my dead friend. You can ignore grief. You push it around your plate. But you can't give it away.”

_____________________________________________________ 

"My grief for you will always be unruly, even as I know it contains the logic of everyone who has ever felt it. Sometimes I close my eyes so that I can listen to it spread. So I can make it spread. I run it up the walls of my apartment. I listen to it circle the door frames and propel itself out the window. I can hear it clonking down the fire escape, cracking the concrete as it lands. Sometimes I hear it in the rivers, sloshing against the stone, or in the subway screeching to a halt. And then because I cannot call you home, I call it home. I open my eyes and in a flash it come back to me, zipping itself to my edges, bobbing between my fingers. It's made a real life for itself here. Oblivious to its own power, it snores sweetly on my chest, this outline of a woman whose time has not yet come."

Both of these quotes really spoke to be about how grief changes us and it can't be ignored. We are forced to grapple with grief once it arrives at our doorstep.

I do recommend this book, but it isn't an easy read. If you are in the middle of a deep grief, I'd proceed with caution.

My rating 4.25 stars.

-Anne

Austen25 -- A 2025 Project

In conjunction with Brona @This Reading Life and her yearlong #ReadingAusten25 project, The Classics Club is hosting a Sync Read (or readalong) of all six of Jane Austen’s novels, in chronological order) throughout 2025.

• January 2025 – read Sense and Sensibility (1811) with your guest host Brona
• March 2025 – read Pride and Prejudice (1813) with your guest host Meredith
• May 2025 – read Mansfield Park (1814) with your guest host Mary
• July 2025 – read Emma (1816) with your guest host Christina
• September 2025 – read Northanger Abbey (1818) with your guest host Adam B.
• November 2025 – read Persuasion (1818) with your guest host Adam S.

January is all about Sense and Sensibility.

Getting a late start on this one, but have been feeling the need to immerse myself in Austen again, so here I am joining another reading project.

Here are a few notes by the host of this project and the first book:

Sense and Sensibility was first published in 1811 anonymously, By A Lady.

Jane Austen wrote the first draft of the novel in epistolary form perhaps as early as 1795 when she was about 19 years old. Novels-in-letters was a style she was playing with at this time, as Lady Susan also dates from this time (1794) and Pride and Prejudice more than likely began life as epistolary fiction in 1796/7.

Her working title was Elinor and Marianne.

In November 1797, Austen began working on her manuscript again and converted it into a narrative (just thinking about the work involved in making this dramatic change makes my head spin).

In 1809/10 she gave it a final edit before submitting it to the publisher Thomas Egerton of the Military Library publishing house in London, with her brother, Henry’s assistance. Egerton accepted the manuscript for publication in three volumes. Austen not only paid to have the book published but also paid the publisher a commission on sales. Jane Austen made £140 in sales from the first edition of Sense and Sensibility. About £24,000 in today’s money. --Brona

And we're off.

-Anne

My Year In Books -- a meme

I was looking at old posts and I stumbled upon this one, an old meme, My Year in Books, from 2017. Thinking it was pretty fun and creative I decided to do it again. Join me.

My Year in Books

Rules?

• Answer the questions with titles from books you read in 2024. (Some may end up being silly, others may seem overly serious.)   
• The goal is to have fun. 
• Participate by copying the questions below. Erasing my answers and inserting you own.  
• Once you've created your post, link it below so others can see it, then visit others' posts to see how they answered the questions.
• Spread the word. Let's see if we can make this a thing again this year!

Questions:

In high school I was: The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be (Shannon Gibney)

People might be surprised: No Cure for Being Human (Kate Bowler)

I will never be: When Women Were Dragons (Kelly Barnhill)

My fantasy job is: The Plague-Busters (Lindsey Fitzharris)

At the end of a long day I need: The Kissing of Kissing (Hannah Emerson)

I hate it:  The Plague of Doves (Louise Erdrich)

Wish I had: A Book of Doors (Gareth Brown)

My family reunions are: Tell Me Everything (Elizabeth Strout)

At a party you’d find me: I Cheerfully Refuse (Leif Enger)

I’ve never been to: A Strange Library (Haruki Murakami)

A happy day includes: Ice Cream Man (Glenda Armand)

Motto I live by: Leave Only Footprints (Conor Knighton)

On my bucket list is: Braiding Sweetgrass (Robin Wall Kimmerer)

In my next life, I want to have: Too Much Happiness (Alice Munro)

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

-Anne

1st book of 2025, a review: THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

First book of the year: The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan

My first book completed and reviewed in a new year -- The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan -- is an illustrated journal of Tan's experiences as a bird watcher/feeder/artist/enthusiast. 

Tan, the famous author of several works, among them are The Joy Luck Club and The Bonesetter's Daughter, took a bird-watching class in 2016. During the class the instructor, Jack, also shared his ideas how to draw birds. Since they don't sit still for long, one has to really hone their observational skills to be successful. Tan started practicing her illustration skills while looking out the windows of her home in Sausalito, California. Over the course of six years she kept an illustrated journal of the birds she saw in her yard. In it she talked about the techniques she used to lure the birds to her yard, while not attracting mammals like rats and squirrels. As her bird feeding techniques got more sophisticated, so did her illustrations.

In the preface Tan says, 

These pages are a record of my obsession with birds. My use of the word obsession is not hyperbole. The Backyard Bird Chronicles contains excerpts from hundred of pages gleaned from nine personal journals filled with sketches and handwritten notes of naive observations of birds in my backyard...My perception of [bird] behaviors changed as I continued to watch day after day, year after year, most of the time sitting at the dining room table overlooking the patio, where I wrote my new novel, or tried to without leaping up whenever I saw a bird doing something I had never seen before, which was often. The Chronicles is also a record of my growth as an artist.

The first journal entry in this book was dated September 16, 2017. It begins --

While watching hummingbird buzz around me, I recalled a fantasy every child has: that I could win the trust of wild animals and they would willingly come to me.

With text on one side and a journal page entry on the other side we are shown the marvelous skills Tan employed to gain the trust of her avian friends and the steps she used to get closer to them. Here is a sample from page 52--

Here Tan is imagining what the Lesser Goldfinch and the Purple Finch must be thinking as the feeder is removed to prevent the spread of disease.

On another page, Tan journals about the Golden-Crowned Sparrow and makes observations --

Though these illustrations are good, one can tell they were done in a hurry. Later in the book she shared more detailed illustrations of Several birds who visited her yard. She clearly spent a lot of time of these works. Some people have told her she rivals Audubon's illustrating skills. I see why --

Great Horned Owl

Chestnut-backed Chickadee

I selected The Backyard Bird Chronicles to be my first read of 2025. It had arrived off hold at the library right before the end of December and I'd long wanted to read it. When I began the book, however, I realized it wasn't a good 'first book' selection since I wanted to take my time and savor it. No one is keeping track (except me) how fast I read and finish a book, but still I felt some disappointment in myself because my first book of the year wasn't done until the end of the first week of the year. Sigh. Anyway, it was worth the time it took to read slowly and savor it.

One note which surprised me. Amy Tan was working on this project before, during, and after the COVID pandemic shut-downs. She barely mentioned this fact. Perhaps because she works at home as a writer, her life didn't change as much as everyone else experienced during that time. Or perhaps she made an editorial decision to talk about herself only in relationship to what was happening with the birds and they weren't impacted by out pandemic. I suspect it was the latter case. Interestingly, she had to remove all her feeders several times in fear of bird flu or other deadly diseases to birds. She let her readers draw their own conclusions about how that could or should relate to human behavior.

My rating: 4.5 stars.

-Anne