Fall Into Reading 2010

For the most part, I have been trying to avoid reading challenges (there are always exceptions), but I have a very good reason for joining this one--the button makes me happy:

Autumn and books--what a great combination!  The details for the challenge can be found at Callapidder Days.  It runs from now until December 20.

With this challenge you basically read anything under the sun, so for me this is a chance to actually be a little organized with my reading and jot down the titles swimming around in my head that I plan to get to in the next few months:

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Sisters in War by Christina Asquith
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery
One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downs
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

Author: Ray Bradbury
Originally Published:  1962
Length:  304 pages
Source:  Library
Challenge:  R.I.P. V
Author website

Personal Enjoyment Factor: 3/5

"And . . . here comes the carnival.  Death like a rattle in one hand, Life like candy in the other; shake one to scare you, offer one to make your mouth water."

"Why, most men jump at the chance to give up everything for nothing.  There's nothing we're so slapstick with as our own immortal souls."

Many times I wish I could turn back the hands of time and read a book at a younger age.  This is the case with Something Wicked This Way Comes.  Knock off about 25 birthdays, and I would be just the right age to get lost in this fantastical tale of horror.  But if I could really do it, really become that (relatively) carefree  girl of yesteryear with the super-charged imagination (and cellulite-free thighs), would I?  And what price would I have to pay?

The people of Green Town, Illinois are unwittingly faced with similar questions one autumn when Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show rolls into town.  Its sinister purpose is not to entertain, but to lure and entice for its own gain.  I could feel as I turned each page the longing of the characters to have their deepest desires fulfilled, and the magnetic pull of the carnival with its unspoken promises to give them what they want:  youth, beauty, sex--the usual suspects.

But not everyone feels the "pull."  Will Halloway, innately good, senses the danger, but those who are closest to him are not so immune.  His best friend Jim Nightshade wants to catapult into manhood while Will's father Charles Halloway longs to be young again.  The carnival has a way to give them what they want:  a carousel that adds or takes away the years depending on whether it goes forwards or backwards.  Want a ticket?

One of the novel's strengths is its characterization of Jim and Will. They're kind of allegorically flat and yet subtly complex at the same time.  (This phenomenon may actually be impossible, but it's the only way this wannabe English major can think of to describe it). I enjoyed the contrast between the two boys and the way they were written.  There was sort of a push-pull thing going on in the writing that I enjoyed. 

As far as the scare factor goes, vivid images have been imprinted in my mind.  Freaky characters abound.  The Dust Witch will certainly be the star of my subsequent nightmares.  The evil of the carnival seeped into my bones.  I am now even more disapproving of carousels.

So why just a 3 out of 5 rating?  I got cranky with some of the writing.  Many times  it got in the way of the story. It felt jerky and sometimes forced.  When I'm  feeling that rush of getting to the end to find out what happened, I don't want to get tripped up by excess words and commas and phrases that I have to stop and decipher.   Surely this is breaking some unwritten rule of suspense writing. It's not  bad writing, it just felt misplaced.

So, back to the question:  If I could really go back, would I?  To read this book--I guess not.  To put on a swimsuit and gaze into a mirror at a youthful body sans stretch marks?  Maybe.  Just maybe.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Author:  Shirley Jackson
Originally Published:  1959
Length:  246 pages
Source:  Library
Challenge: R.I.P. V

Personal Enjoyment Factor:  3/5

"I think we are all incredibly silly to stay.  I think that an atmosphere like this one can find out the flaws and faults and weaknesses in all of us, and break us apart in a matter of days."

After reading this book that is thought to be one of the best haunted-house stories of the last century I feel . . . defective.  Like I'm missing some sort of goosebump gene.  No thrills, no chills.  (I did have a dream one night that my own house was talking to me, but when I woke up I realized it was just our very noisy water purifier gurgling away.)  So what's wrong with me?

Maybe it was my dislike for the characters and my lack of caring what became of them.  Three quirky/annoying individuals come to Hill House at the request of Dr. Montague to document supernatural events that may or may not happen.  While there, they engage in wacky conversations where someone is usually interrupting someone else and often insulting one another.  There's a very punctual and repetitive caretaker who's a great cook.  They run around a lot and can't keep the doors open.   One girl paints the other girl's toes red and she freaks out a little.  The characters are all very flawed, and although I'm sure the author meant for them to be, it kept me from engaging in the story as much as I would have liked. 

I did like the psychological aspect of the story, but it was more interesting than creepy.  I enjoyed the style of her writing but I'm still not sure if I will read anything else by Jackson.  We Have Always Lived in the Castle sounds promising, but I'm afraid I will be disappointed again.  Maybe fans of  Jackson can put me in my place and tell me what I missed.  Maybe I should have turned off all the lights and paint my toenails red.

Other thoughts:  A Striped Armchair,  Reading Matters, Things Mean A Lot, Books I Done Read, Fizzy Thoughts, A Good Stopping Point, Jenny's Books, So Many Books, Good Clean Reads 

Any others I can add?

R. I. P. V

You've heard about it.  It's irresistible.  I'm around the 190th person to sign-up.  Here are my possible reading choices for Peril the First:

1.  The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
2.  And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
3.  Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
4.  I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
5.  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
6.  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
7.  The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tay
8.  The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre
9.  The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
10.  A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sunley

Author:  Christina Sunley
Published:  2010 (Picador)
Length:  368 pages
Source:  Free review copy
Author website

Personal Enjoyment Factor: 4/5

"Winter in Iceland, Freya min, was much longer and darker than here. . .Dark day after long dark day the Icelanders were trapped inside.  How did they stand it?  They read.  Members of the household took turns reading out loud by the smoky glow of a lamp lit by whale oil:  sagas and poetry and the Bible and newspapers and any books they could get their hands on.  Books were passed from farm to farm.  The name for these evening readings was kvoldvaka, meaning evening-wake.  In Iceland in winter, words took the place of light" (pg. 64).

A reverence for literary tradition and a love of words are apparent in this debut novel about a young woman driven to discover a long-hidden family secret.  Freya's curiosity about her Aunt Birdie's past distracts her from an isolated and rather dismal life in New York and invokes memories of Gimli, a village in Canada where she spent summers with her captivating, bipolar Aunt.  The search eventually leads her back to Iceland, the site of a traumatic event in Freya's childhood.  While discovering about her ancestors and Icelandic history and mythology, Freya learns even more about who she is and where she comes from.

There are so many layers to this novel--when I finished I was impressed with how subtly they were all woven together.  It's a lot to pack into one book, but Sunley pulls it off well (although summarizing is difficult!)  I also loved the virtual trip to a place I will probably never go.  The descriptions of Iceland are breathtaking.  There's a definite sense of being "there."  The stark setting and tragic story pair together perfectly.

The writing was unique (to me)--at times poetic, but almost always quite readable.  The only exception to this was the first chapter, until I could wrap my head around the fact that she is addressing a cousin that she has discovered may exist.  It was a little unsettling at first, but I calmed down a bit when I realized she wasn't talking to me.  (I don't like a narrator to pay too much attention to me.)

The first line is "You want a bit of Birdie?"  At first I wasn't so sure that I did want a bit of Birdie, but  I soon got into the rhythm of the book and by the end I can say that it was satisfying to learn more than a bit about Birdie, as well as Freya, Freya's mother and grandmother, not to mention a whole new Icelandic vocabulary that is a whole lot easier to pronounce than the name of the volcano (Eyjafjallajökull???) that erupted earlier this year in Iceland. 

Other thoughts on The Tricking of Freya:  Boston Bibliophile,  The Book Nest, The Book Lady's Blog, My Random Acts of Reading, Pages Turned, S. Krishna's Books, A Little Bookish,   Bloggin' 'bout Books, Rose City Reader, Book Bird Dog (Interview), A Little Bookish, Sophisticated Dorkiness

Any that I missed?

Classics Blogger Directory at The Zen Leaf

Amanda from The Zen Leaf is putting together a directory for all of those who blog about literary classics! If you're another lover of the classics, sign up to be on the directory, or just use it as a source for reviews. 

I don't know what percentage of my reviews consist of classics (statistics, bleh!), but it is one of my largest categories on Goodreads.  I still feel like I've only scratched the surface and there are many I hope to read before I die, or go blind, or lose my mind, or become addicted to exercise and become a hottie and shun reading as a couch potato activity.  (Only one of those is a likely possibility, and it's not the one that would involve wearing a bikini.)

Summer

I haven't done much blogging this summer, which works in great with my new found laid-back attitude that is quickly becoming a permanent personality trait.  For now, anyway.

I thought summer would be pretty mellow this year, without any long road-trips involving bickering teenagers and hotel laundry sessions, but it turns out three smaller trips, thrown in with Scout camp and Girls' Camp, a couple of birthdays, and a few other very un-summer-like responsibilities, can surpass the mayhem of driving 3,000 miles around the country!  At least we've had pretty wonderful weather through it all!

Our first mini-trip was to Las Vegas. This is the best we could do to catch that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" spirit:

My kids were dressing up as nerds in the all-you-can-eat buffet with the 3D glasses from Toy Story 3.  Yeah, we're a wild bunch! 

We mostly just relaxed, swam, watched a couple of World Cup games, and read.  Here's a picture of a real-life nerd, reading The Heretic Queen by Michele Moran (which was a great book!  I may  never do a review, so I'll give it a thumbs-up right here):

We also had family from out of town visiting for a week, and that gave us a good excuse to revisit some great places in San Diego, like Legoland (a#$%^&$$$$$!!!)  Although expensive, watching my teenagers get thrown around by a mechanical arm was probably the equivalent of a few good sessions of therapy:

But I'm not sure how I feel about my "baby" getting swallowed by a shark:

We also packed up our gear (a long process) and headed to the great outdoors.  We camped at Mineral King, which is a lesser-travelled area of Sequoia National Park.  One of the reasons it is not so busy is the almost single-lane windy road that you drive for about an hour and a half to get there. 

I started out the trip prepared with a book, of course.  I would normally avoid such close-up shots of myself like the two-inch spider that befriended me in the "bathroom," but I wanted to show the beautiful river we were camped next to:

I was reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, which I just couldn't get into (Anyone read this?  Should I keep going?).  Luckily, we were too busy hiking and playing games and sitting around the fire for me to have to open it much.  The hikes were hard (for me) but beautiful.   

A reader's confession:  I actually like hiking more than reading (gasp!)  But one is more accessible than the other on most days, which helps explain why I had so much of a "load" to carry with me up the mountain.  Here I am with a couple of my girls at the end of a 7-mile hike to Mosquito lake:

As far as reading goes, I am happy to say that after several months I finally finished Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.  I'll admit, I'm a Dickens lover, so of course I liked it.  It was good to see the BBC series first, though.  If you liked Mrs. F's Aunt, you get and even bigger dose of her antics in the book!  Loved it!

Other reading in July:

All the King's Men by Robert Warren Penn.  Raved about it here.

Pippi Longstalking by Astrid Lindgren.  Finished reading it to my girls.  They enjoyed it and then we watched the movie with the dubbed-in voices.  Remember that one?  Prime entertainment!

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.  Great novella!  I'm shocked and amazed that I read anything with so many mathematical equations in it.

The Tricking of Freya by Christina Sundley.  Very readable, unique novel.  I will do a review of this one soon.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.  Listened to this one.  It was good, but it didn't wow me or anything.  I did learn a bit of history previously unknown to me.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.  Loved this one.  The first chapter was especially powerful.  I read it as part of a readalong.  Have not taken part in the "along" portion yet.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. I've been wanting to get into this series forever, and what a great start.  This is great comfort reading!

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.  Another audio selection.  Great narration by Scott Brick.  The story is still as depressing as it was when I read it 20 years ago, but I love Wharton's writing.

Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann.  I still haven't finished this one for the War Through the Generations readalong.  I'm over halfway, but I just don't know if I can do it. I haven't taken it back to the library yet.  Just 60 more pages...

Today my kids are all back in school, which explains why I have easier access to the computer and some quiet to think a bit.  This is quite the long post, and here's the real reason I needed to write this and distract myself:  My daughter is taking her driving test today!!!  On her first day of school!!!  She may not be stressed about it, but I am.  I'm making my husband take her because I know I would have a nervous breakdown or something.  Why can't they just stay 15.99999 forever???