Mansfield Park Read-along, the sixth

Henry Crawford in Mansfield Park, Miramax Films 1999

We are over 3/4th of the way through our read-along of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. I'm actually not sure if anyone has joined me on this reading adventure but I am sure enjoying it, whether you are with me or not. Plus, I hope that you are enjoying my weekly updates.

50+ page goal met. Yes, I read over 50 pages this week. (Hope I am not leaving anyone in the dust! Ha!). I am up to XXXVIII. (I just love Roman numerals.)

Action: Henry Crawford asks Fanny to marry him and she refuses. Sir Thomas Bertram, her uncle, tries to talk her into marrying Henry. She still refuses. Edmond tries to convince her, though he tells her she shouldn't marry if she doesn't love Henry. Mary Crawford tries to convince Fanny to change her mind by telling Fanny what a catch Henry is and how many other women are chasing him. Edmond confesses to Fanny how much he loves Mary Crawford and implies that he will seek her hand. Fanny is miserable. When William once again comes for a visit, Sir Bertram decides that Fanny should visit her parents in Portsmouth, since she has an escort home in William, thinking that a few months of living with their poverty might help her change her mind about marrying Henry.

Surprises: I was surprised that Sir Bertram seemed more perplexed than angry about Fanny's refusal to marry Henry. Both Mansfield Park movies show him very angry with Fanny. In the 1999 version, it is this anger that causes him to send Fanny home to her parents making her even more wretched. I was also shocked by Mary's entreaty of Fanny to reconsider. It really was delivered in a gentler and kinder way than I would have expected. I am not surprised by how much I enjoy reading Austen, even this not-so-well-known book.

Quote: Fanny to Mary, about Henry:

I am persuaded that he does not think as he ought on serious subjects.

Friday Posts: CRESS

Book: Cress by Marissa Meyer, 3rd book in The Lunar Chronicles series.

Book Beginnings:

     Her satellite made one full orbit around the planet Earth every sixteen hours. It was a prison that came with an endlessly breathtaking view---vast ocean and swirling clouds and sunrises that set half the world on fire.

Friday 56:

     Nainsi, Kai's android assistant, appeared in the office doorway, holding a tray with jasmine tea and hot wash clothes. Her sensor lights flashed. 'Daily reports, Your Majesty?'
... Nainsi set the tray on Kai's desk and turned to face him and Torin, launching into the day's reports that blissfully had nothing to do with wedding vows or eight-course dinners.

My Thoughts: This is the third installment in the Lunar Chronicles series, which are based on fairy tales is the partial retelling of Rapunzel. I couldn't imagine how the author was going to imprison Cress until I read the first line. Of course. Her tower is a satellite from which she cannot escape.

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. I'm reading:

Review: Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn

Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn won the Morris Award, Which honors a book written for young adult audiences by an author previously unpublished. I read the book as part of my own reading challenge to read all the ALA Youth Services Award books.

The ALA News page describes the book and explains why it was the winner:

     Drew, aka “Win,” has been isolated at boarding school since age 12. While he outwardly excels, a horrific secret pushes him toward madness. With the help of friends, can he conquer the beast within? Win’s rawness and vulnerability illuminate the teen experience in ways both unflinchingly honest and frighteningly familiar.
     'Kuehn’s use of physics and emotion, drama and misdirection creates a dark and moody journey. This story resonates with every read,' said Morris Award Chair Dorcas Wong. 

In chapters that alternate between matter (present day) and anti-matter (the past) the reader gets small glimpses into what makes Drew/Win tick. But nothing is clear. Most glimpses just bring more questions forward. Why is he so angry, and at such a young age?  What happened to his family and what role did he play in the event? Why doesn't he eat? And why hasn't he outgrown his motion sickness? Why can't he get along with his roommates? Is he going mad or is this another supernatural story? Little by little each question is answered even as more questions appear. Fortunately the book ends on a note of hope, one that that leaves the reader with a sense that Win will discover some of the answers that he needs to move forward.

I'm a bit dense so I missed all the physics references and didn't really understand the title of the book until I read another review where it was explained that both charm and strange are types of quarks. Don't ask me to explain quarks, but I do know they have something to do with physics. But now that I think about it, the story is explained by physics or perhaps, more correctly, Win thinks he is plagued by conditions which only physics could explain. Either way, the story didn't suffer because I missed all this as I read it.

This is a book which gives the reader a lot to think about. I read it fast, finishing it in one day, because I HAD to know what was going to happen next. I hope my teen readers will be as anxious to read consume it as I did. It should be particularly popular with students who like books with a psychological aspect to them.

TTT: Unique/Quirky books

Hosted by Broke and Bookish

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is about unique books. I tell people that I like quirky books with quirky characters so my list replaces the word "unique" with "quirky", though they may end up being the same thing.

1. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

By 2045, the exhaustion of Earth's fossil fuels has led to longstanding global scarcity and violent unrest. People take refuge in the OASIS, a massively multiplayer online virtual reality simulation that dominates all human activity. Its creator James Halliday had died five years earlier. His fortune and controlling ownership of the OASIS will be awarded to the first person to find an Easter egg inside the simulation, which he has hidden behind a series of three gates unlocked by hidden keys. Those searching for the Egg are referred to as "gunters". Gunters become devotees of 1980s pop culture, with which Halliday had been obsessed. -Wikipedia

2.  The Couch by Benjamin Parzybok

Instead of an epic journey with a ring, this book starts in Portland, Oregon when a few fellows have to move a couch from their apartment to Goodwill. A trip to Goodwill never happens because they find themselves leaving town with the couch and all kinds of unexpected adventures happen on and because of the couch. I laughed my way through this quirky book but it got me thinking, too.

3. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

This is the funniest, silliest, zaniest Science Fiction book I've ever read. It is Monty-Python-laugh-out-loud-funny and one of my favorite books to recommend to those senior boys who are tired of the kid stuff I have in the library.

4. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Stuffed full of the quirkiest set of characters in all literature this book is a must-read for anyone who likes unique/quirky reads. Ignatius J. Riley is the most despicable, gross character but his voice is unique and contagious. Oh my gawd, you have to read this book because of quotes like this: “I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

5. Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

'Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens.'-Goodreads. This book is seven interconnected stories which tie together with ever tightening threads. More unique than quirky.

6. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore combines elements of fantasy, mystery, friendship and adventure as a way of looking at the modern conflict and transition between new technology (electronic) and old (print books). The main protagonist is a laid off Silicon Valley tech worker who begins working at a dusty bookstore with very few customers, only to start discovering one secret after another. The mysterious old books, along with the store's owner, lead to a 500 year old secret society.-Wikipedia

7. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fford

Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality, and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide. -Goodreads (This is the first book in an 8 book series.)

8. God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant

A book full of poems about God as if he were present in our everyday lives and actions, like going to the beauty parlor. This book has been recently reworked and republished with a new title: God Got a Dog.

9. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Milo mopes in black ink sketches, until he assembles a tollbooth and drives through. He jumps to the island of Conclusions. But brothers King Azaz of Dictionopolis and the Mathemagician of Digitopolis war over words and numbers. Joined by ticking watchdog Tock and adult-size Humbug, Milo rescues the Princesses of Rhyme and Reason, and learns to enjoy life.- Goodreads 

10. Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Through a series of captivating and sophisticated illustrated stories, Tan explores the precious strangeness of our existence.-Goodreads 

*  Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan (Jamie over at Perpetual Page-Turner reminded me of this one!)

Here's one of the things I said in my review of this book that makes it really fit this TTT post:
unique, n., adj.      I have never read a book like it before.  It is the sole example of a tale written as if by a dictionary, to my knowledge. 

Sunday Salon, April 6

The bike spokes in the foreground are actually a big bike rack.

Weather: rainy. What is it they say about April showers?

End of Spring break: today is the last day of Spring Break. Back to work tomorrow. It was a good week, though, visiting my sister and parents in Eugene, and taking a short trip to the Washington Coast with the hubby earlier in the week. The photo (above) was taken in front of a restaurant in Eugene where my sister and I shared a yummy black bean burger and I pondered the question, does Eugene attract hippies or create them?

Day of reading was a success: read my update here. I spent most of yesterday just reading (or listening to books being read aloud.) Don was at National Guard and it rained all day. Why not stay in and read?

National Poetry Month: April is poetry month. These lines come from the poem A PRAYER by Max Ehrmann. The poet seems to be looking at his life gratefully and thanking God for His many blessings. This verse, from the end of the poem, really struck me because it does seem that we chase after "the castle of my dreams" not often finding it.

And though age and infirmity overtake me,

and I come not within

sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me

still to be thankful for

life, and for time's olden memories that are good

and sweet; and

may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.

By the way: Max Ehrmann (1872-1945), author of the above poem, was the poet who wrote "Desiderata", a poem which was widely distributed back in the 1960s/70s and was mistakenly attributed to a work from the 17th century. If you haven't read that poem recently it is worth a good reread. (The link is to the SNOPES description about the mistaken attribution of the poem.)

Here is a rather cheesy YouTube video of Desiderata set to music:

Books read this week (remember, it is Spring Break):

• Wild by Cheryl Strayed. Don and I listened to the last two discs of the audiobook en route to Pacific Beach, then talked over the whole book as we ate a delicious salmon dinner at Lake Quinault.
• Your Food is Fooling You by David Kessler, MD. A YA version of his popular and helpful book, The End of Overeating, which I haven't read but should.
• Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple. The last fifty pages tipped my opinion into the positive column but just barely.
• Relish by Lucy Knisley. A graphic memoir by an artist about her very foodie family and life. It was a strange juxtaposition to read this right after Your Food is Fooling You. Knisley is a very talented artist and I enjoyed the book and recipes very much.
• A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. The #3 Flavia de Luce mystery. This was my audiobook selection for my trip to Oregon and back.
• Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn. This was the Morris Award winner this year for debut author. I hope to write a review of it soon.
• The Jane Austen Companion to Life. With illustrations by C.E. Brock. This shouldn't count since it is just short sayings with an illustration per page.

Books currently reading:

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Described as a love story to literature.
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. This is my read-along book, two more weeks and I'll be done.
• 100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits, edited by Leslie Pockell. My favorite way of reading poetry with the help of an editor that makes good selections and comments on them.

There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it.                      ― Gustave Flaubert

50 Quotes about poetry: Check out the website.

A day of reading ahead... (with update)

This is the last weekend of Spring Break and I was determined to spend one full day reading over break. That leaves today or tomorrow. Since tomorrow is church and a party, Sunday won't work, leaving only today. So I begin. Here are a few reading goals for the day:

1. Finish A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley. I've been listening to the audiobook and am now on the last disc. Done. I listened to the last disc as I drove around doing errands.

2. Read the entire book Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kubler. It is short, just over 200 pages. I read over 100 pages on Saturday and finished it this morning.

3. Read 50 pages of Mansfield Park, my weekly page allotment for the read-along. Done. Poor Fanny, Henry Crawford won't leave her alone.

4. Get started with A Shadow in the Wind, make a beginning dent, enough to really launch me into its plot. I listened to three audiodiscs out of 16, which is approximately page 100.

5. Read a few poems in 100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits edited by Leslie Pockell. I started the day with a poem from it, "To a Skylark" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It is a fairly long poem but here is a favorite verse:

Teach us sprite or bird,
   What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
   Praise of love or wine
That poured forth a flood of rapture so divine.

I read a few more poems. Unfortunately, I am in the portion of the book full of the Romantics' poems, not my favorites. Here is one I did like, though:

"Dawn Revisited" by Rita Dove

Imagine you wake up  
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares 
and the oak still stands, spreading 
glorious shade. If you don't look back,

the future never happens. 
How good to rise in sunlight, 
in the prodigal smell of biscuits--- 
eggs and sausage on the grill. 
The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open 
to a blank page. Come on, 
shake a leg! You'll never know 
who's down there, frying those eggs, 
if you don't get up and see.

6. Drop by the library to pick up the book club kit for this month. Peek at the book, Secret Son. Got it and I read the first page of the book which is set in Morocco. I'm looking forward to reading more of it soon.

7. I also read a small gift book called The Jane Austen Companion to Life which is full of illustrations by C.E Brock.

I'm off to read but will check back in later. It was a good day of reading.

Mansfield Park Read-along, the fifth installment

Fanny Price with Henry Crawford at the dance.
Illustration by WC Brock

Mansfield Park Read-along is designed to break the book into bite-sized pieces suitable to easy reading and enjoyment.

50+ page goal met? Yes, to the end of Chapter XXX.

Action: Fanny's brother, William, is visiting Mansfield Park on leave from the Navy. The Bertrams attend a dinner party hosted by the Grants. Lady Bertram shows her true colors when she cannot play even the simplest card game and required Henry Crawford to tell her what cards to play every turn. As William's visit nears its end, Sir Thomas decides that it is high time for Fanny to come out and he decides to host a dance in her honor. Both Mary Crawford and Edmond give Fanny gold chains to wear with the amber cross given to her by her brother. The whole rest of the section is devoted to preparations for the dance, the dance, and the aftermath of the dance. Henry Crawford was quite devoted to Fanny the whole evening. The next day Henry and William leave for London where William will join back up with his unit. When Henry returns several days later he confesses to his sister how much he loves Fanny. He admits that he didn't start out with pure motives but he is now besotted by Fanny.

Surprises: Both Mansfield Park movies spend quite a bit of time on the dance and on Henry's attentions to Fanny Price. What surprised me was his lengthy revelation to his sister about how much he loves Fanny and how his motives toward her have changed from the beginning. I suppose that the movies don't have time for true love confessions but it explains a lot. Henry is no longer just trying to make a little hole in Fanny's heart, he is setting himself up for a broken heart himself. Of all Austen's Cads I have always liked Henry the best and after reading chapter 30 where he makes his true confessions it makes me like him even better.

Quote:
Henry to his sister, Mary...

'Yes, Mary,' said he, drawing her arm within his, and walking along the sweep as if not knowing where he was---'I could not get away sooner---Fanny looked so lovely! I am quite determined, Mary. My mind is entirely made up. Will it astonish you? No: you must be aware that I am quite determined to marry Fanny Price.'

Another poetry installment

I'm in Eugene, Oregon right now for Spring Break. Today I went to the Smith Family Bookstore which is huge, overstuffed with used books, indie bookstore. It is fun to hunt for the diamonds in the rough. I stumbled upon the poetry section and bought several poem books: two love poetry books; a poetry book by Barbara Kingsolver (who knew she wrote poetry?); poems by Rumi; poems by Rilke with the German on one side of the page, English on the other; and another titled 100 Poems to Lift Your Spirits edited by Leslie Pockell.  Here is a silly poem I found within, by the publishers of Mad Magazine. Apparently they were making fun of the William Wordsworth poem Daffodils. That poem starts, I wandered lonely as a cloud. Here is the MAD magazine version of the poem for your enjoyment today?

I Wandered Lonely as a Clod

I wandered lonely as a clod,

Just picking up old rags and bottles,

When onward on my way I plod,

I saw a host of axolotls;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

A sight to make a man's blood freeze.

Some had handles, some were plain;

They came in blue, red pink, and green.

A few were orange in the main;

The damndest sight I've ever seen.

The females gave a sprightly glance;

The male ones all wore knee-length pants.

Now oft, when on the couch I lie,

The doctor asks me what I see.

They flash upon my inward eye

And make me laugh in fiendish glee.

I find my solace then in bottles,

And I forget them axolotls.

From MAD magazine #43, 1958.

Here is what axolotls look like, in case you wanted to know. 

I didn't even know such a thing existed until today. Ha!

Photo from National Geographic

Doesn't this photo just make you want to laugh?

I hope you enjoy this poetic moment.

April is National Poetry Month

 April is National Poetry Month.

Here are 30 suggestions found on Poetry.org of ways to encorporate more poetry in to your life. I'm heading outside to write a poem on the driveway, if I can find the sidewalk chalk. What will you do today?

Muffy sitting in the middle of the Shel Silverstein poem, Where the Sidewalk Ends.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
*
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
*
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
                                                      ---Shel Silverstein

Review: Your Food is Fooling You by David Kessler, M.D.

Several weeks ago another book blogging librarian commented that she had lost 70 lbs applying the principles in David Kessler's The End of Overeating, the grown up version of Your Food is Fooling You: How Your Brain is Hijacked by Sugar, Fat, and Salt. I am trying to eat more healthfully and I am looking for all the solid eating advice I can get. If Kessler's advice worked for my blogging friend, why not me? However, when I commented on her site that I was reading this book she replied that The End of Overeating is a much better choice. Perhaps this book, rewritten for young readers, is too simplified.

Since I haven't read its adult counterpart I can only remark on the book I read. Your Food is Fooling You makes a lot of good points about the food industry and how companies purposefully manipulate ingredients to make their food full of more salt, sugar, and fat because they know that it will make us like it better. Kessler makes comparisons to the brain chemistry of drug addiction when referring to our food choices. Our brain reward center is altered just like what happens with addicts when we select high fat/high sugar foods. The scariest part of this research shows how the brains of very young children stop sending cues to tell them that they are full and should stop eating when they consume these unhealthy diets. Thus our society is getting fatter and unhealthier every year. Oddly, these changes really started in the early 1980s, right around the same time our obsession with low-fat diets started.

All of this information, while fascinating and often very disturbing, was presented in a very simplistic way. I wanted more meat and potatoes (excuse the pun!) in the form of more specific details. Without these details the book seemed tedious and monotonous. It was not until page 142 of 168 that Kessler finally offered some suggestions for how to overcome our food choice problems. Two of these suggestions really intrigue me and I plan to use them myself:

• Make "rules" for yourself around eating that you repeat to yourself frequently. When we get the urge to overeat we have a split second to make a decision. These rules help us make the right choice. Kessler says that "rules are not the same thing as willpower. You aren't arguing against something you want. You're reminding yourself that you really don't want it." These rules can have a very powerful impact on cravings especially if the rule is paired with a reason. For example a rule might be I don't eat candy bars and the reason because I always feel worse after I eat them.
• Use any form of exercise as an alternate reward or diversion. I've noticed that this really works for me. If I want a snack after school but delay snacking until after I've walked the dog or did 40+ minutes of Wii Fit activities, the desire to snack is usually gone altogether. This all goes back to brain chemistry. In the middle of the afternoon I want a lift because my chemicals are down, food will temporarily provide that lift but so does exercise. Exercise has the increased benefit of the chemicals lasting longer and burning-up calories not adding more.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, but with a note that this book was designed for young readers and probably won't seem meaty enough for most adult readers. I hope to pick up Kessler's The End of Overeating which I suspect will be more to my liking.