January 2008 - Page 3 of 4

Thinking in Pictures

and Other Reports from My Life with Autism
by Temple Grandin

This is the book that sparked my interest in and curiosity about autism. But when I first picked it up, for some reason I thought it was about art. I had just come from a college art class where we had been discussing if \”most people\” see images in their mind or think in patterns of words, like sentences. We postulated that artists were more likely to think via images. Then I visited the college bookstore and spotted this on the shelf. Immediately I associated it with the class discussion and couldn\’t resist picking it up. I was quite unprepared for the actual subject matter; but it caught my interest right away.

Before I read Thinking in Pictures, all I knew of autism was the stereotypical idea of a kid huddled in a corner, non-speaking, closed out from the world. But I learned that there are many forms of autism, some quite high-functioning, some unrecognizable from what I had assumed. Temple Grandin describes her own experiences, her journey through school, her amazing aunt who helped her channel an obsessive interest and turn it into a career at which she became very successful. Grandin explains how autism causes her senses to function differently from normal people\’s (mostly in being more sensitive). Because of this, she can understand why animals respond in certain ways to their environment; and she used this ability along with her drawing skills, to design more humane livestock-handling systems. Her work was innovative and award-winning.

This is a fascinating book on many levels. It can feel a bit disjointed, moving from one theme or subject to another unexpectedly, and sometimes you have to step back from the book to see how it all connects together. But I did not find this bothersome, seeing how difficult it was for the author to learn to write at all and present her thoughts in writing. From this book I went on to read other works Grandin has written, Emergence and Animals in Translation, followed by a plethora of books on autism and related disorders. The variations of the human mind and how it works hold a never-ending fascination for me.

Rating: 5/5 …….. 222 pages, 2005

Tags: 5/5- Loved It, Animals Nonfiction, Nonfiction (general), Past Reads

Treasure Island

by Robert Louis Stevenson

I got to page 110. I don’t know why this one lost me. I did like Stevenson’s Kidnapped, and Treasure Island is more famous, but I just lost interest in the fighting and greed for gold. Pirates, adventure, high seas, yay. Long John Silver is such a curious, creepy character did you know he can run around on one leg and attack people? Here’s the thing that bugged me right from the beginning: this kid Jim, lives with his parents at an inn. An old pirate comes and terrorizes their inn, his father dies of illness, scoundrels come after the pirate, murder is committed there, and what does Jim do? He goes off to chase after gold, leaving his widowed mother behind. Why did she let him go? I don’t get it.

Rating: Abandoned

229 pages, 1914

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Classics, Juvenile Fic

Artemis Fowl

by Eoin Colfer

This just wasn\’t for me. The premise looked interesting: rich powerful genius kid chases down criminals, then twists the arm of an ancient fairy who ends up giving him trouble. But I didn\’t like the writing style at all. Granted, it\’s for kids but there\’s young adult books out there that are excellent, and this wasn\’t one of them.

Abandoned …0/5… 416 pages, 2003

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Fantasy / Sci Fi, Juvenile Fic

Pastwatch

the Redemption of Christopher Columbus
by Orson Scott Card

Pastwatch is a real thinker. It posits the question: if you could really go back in time and change the past, would you? Constructed around a future hundreds of years ahead of our time, and the life of Christopher Columbus in the past, this book is both a science-fiction mind-bender and a thoughtful historical novel. The premise is that in the future, historians can use machines to look back in time and study any person they want. They fixate on Columbus as having been a key figure in propagating misery upon humankind, and aim to go back in time and change what he did… at a great cost to themselves.

I found that the parts of the book describing how Columbus thought and acted sprang to life for me- I was really picturing what it was like to live in his time, how he came to set off on his famous voyage of discovery. But the future-time scenes left something to be desired; they focused so much on dialog and what was being done, I didn\’t get much sense of the characters\’ surroundings and several times got lost because I missed a small cue as to what was happening in the plot, hinted at in someone\’s conversation. By the time the book wound to a close, I was beginning to loose interest. It all wrapped up too quickly.

Card is a great writer about human relationships. There were lots of observations on marriage and the subtle balance of control between men and women (I\’m thinking Queen Isabella and the King in particular). The issues of slavery, racism and how religion was used as an oppressive force are a very large presence in this book.

This is the first book I have read concurrent with my husband since we went through a half-dozen Orwell novels together. He was so eager to discuss things in the book with me, yet didn\’t want to give away the plot, I actually got encouraged to spend time sitting in bed reading in order to catch up with what he\’d read on the train. It was thought-provoking and fun.

Rating: 4/5 402 pgs, 1996

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Fantasy / Sci Fi, Historical Fiction

Meme: Introduced

Question from Booking Through Thursday: 1. How did you come across your favorite author(s)? Recommended by a friend? Stumbled across at a bookstore? A book given to you as a gift?
2. Was it love at first sight? Or did the love affair evolve over a long acquaintance?

The first author that comes to mind was Chaim Potok. I first read his novel The Chosen as a high-school assignment, and loved it. My sister T. did too. We read the sequel together, and over several more years I chanced upon more of his books. Before long I was seeking them out, and I\’ve now read (and own) all of his fiction works. I was very sad when he passed away a few years ago…

Anne McCaffrey I discovered because a childhood friend gave me Dragonflight for my birthday. Barbara Hambly I found by picking up one of her books at a second-hand shop, same with James Herriot. Tolkien, my father read us The Hobbit when we were children. Mark Twain, as well. I remember sitting on a chair looking over his shoulder at the pictures in Heritage Press editions of Tom Sawyer. Barbara Kingsolver I discovered because my mother told me that my sister was reading and liked The Poisonwood Bible. Orwell– I first read Animal Farm in school, and 1984 off my father\’s bookshelf. In more recent years my husband and I discovered and began reading more of Orwell\’s novels; we sought them out. Now they\’re a household favorite. Steinbeck is another author that high school introduced me to; I remember discussing The Grapes of Wrath in class. I have gradually come to know and love more of his works.

I don\’t remember how I first came across Robin McKinley\’s works, or Mary O\’Hara but I\’ve read and loved them since childhood. I think I first stumbled across them at the public library. C.S. Lewis is a very old favorite, too. I think perhaps my mother first read or introduced us to The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Maybe my sisters can help me remember that one…

I could go on, because I have lots of favorites. I think those are the top dozen, though!

Tags: memes

The Hungry Ocean

A Swordboat Captain\’s Journey
by Linda Greenlaw

This fascinating, adventuresome book details one trip aboard the swordfishing boat Hannah Boden captained by Greenlaw with a crew of four. The book starts out at the beginning of the trip, and follows every step through to the end. From the moment they load the boat with some $40,000 of supplies, the crew is racing against the clock to catch enough swordfish to make the trip profitable. If they don\’t get a good catch, there\’s no paychecks. First they have to find the fish. Then there\’s battling awful weather, swarms of sharks that eat up the bait, illness, breaking equipment, fights among the crew, and competition from other swordboats. The work can be painstaking, backbreaking and dirty, and the reader is spared no details. The appendix even includes an itemized list of expenses and profits made on this particular trip, and a map of the boat\’s course. Besides just telling the story of what it\’s like to work in the fishing industry, The Hungry Ocean also includes some superstitions, legendary tales and funny stories about fishing and her own thoughts and philosophical musings on life. She is a successful woman captain in an occupation dominated by men, and you can see why. She always wanted to captain a boat, and poured her whole heart into it. She is stubborn, humorous, and smart. And a good writer.

Rating: 4/5 288 pages, 1999

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, Nonfiction (general), Past Reads, Travel/Adventure

In the Company of Newfies

A Shared Life
by Rhoda Lerman

Rhoda Lerman is a breeder of Newfoundlands. But this book is not a technical description of the breed, or a training manual. Rather, it is a novel about one year in her life with nine adult dogs and a litter of new puppies. There is a lot of information on the history of the breed and what breeders go through to raise the dogs included as part of the narrative. Mostly, though, the book deals with the dogs\’ personalities, and their relationship with Lerman herself. These great, gentle dogs are really part of Lerman\’s family, as she makes quite clear. Her communication with them is so intuitive that she makes them appear nearly human. At times, her statements about the dogs\’ yearning to be human, and her her desires to be more like a dog can make the reader pause… But the overall story is so well-written, interesting and prosaic that I can overlook this. In the Company of Newfies was out of print for many years, having just come back in 2002. A great book for anyone interested in dogs or animal behavior, one to sit and cherish for the beauty of its words.

Rating: 4/5 162 pages, 1996

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Animals Nonfiction, Past Reads

The Polysyllabic Spree

by Nick Hornby

A Christmas gift from my sister K. Being “a hilarious and true account of one man’s struggle with the monthly tide of the books he’s bought and the books he’s been meaning to read” there is nothing about The Polysyllabic Spree that I could not love. Except the fact that I never read most of books he talks about. No matter. It’s still a delight! Funny, intelligent, witty and honest. And I even felt excused when at the end I read Hornby’s quote of another author (Gabriel Zaid, So Many Books): ” ‘it would take us fifteen years simply to read a list of all the books every published.‘ I think he intends to make us despair…” So that’s why I haven’t heard of all these titles!

“Zaid’s finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph when he says that ‘the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more.‘ ” That would be me, certainly, if there were not financial restraints and common sense. Though I do feel like I loose composure with too many unread books around. I feel like I ought to read what’s in my “unread” pile before acquiring more books (right now that shelf is about static at forty-six). So does that mean I’m not cultured? It’s probably a good thing; I think my husband would go utterly mad if all our walls were lined with bookcases, and the floors would groan.

Back to the Spree. Unbeknown to me beforehand, there exists a monthly literary publication called The Believer, in which Hornby writes a column called “Stuff I’ve Been Reading.” This book is a collection of those essays. At the head of each Horby lists what books he bought that month (or some of them) and what he’s read, then plunges into observations on said books. How good or poor they are, what they make him think of, tidbits about the authors, the competition they have with football-viewing and the arrival of a new child, because “reading is a domestic activity, and is therefore subsceptible to any changes in the domestic environment.” Oh, isn’t that so! My book-reading soared the first month after my baby was born and I was stuck in bed recuperating with a nursing infant; it plunged thereafter when the kid got more active…

My two other favorite quotes from Hornby are “what one wants to read, most of the time, is something that bears no reference to one’s life and work” and “There is enough money in the music and movie industries to ensure that we get to hear about most things that might interest us; books have to remain a secret, to be discovered only when you spend time browsing. This is bad for authors, but good for the assiduous shopper.” I just love that feeling of discovery when I find a treasure tucked on a dusty shelf in a second-hand shop, or open a book I picked up on chance because it was only a dollar, only to find it’s the best thing I’ve ever read…

This is the longest post I’ve written in months, but it was also the most enjoyable thing I’ve read in that long and I need somewhere to gush! As a result of reading The Polysyllabic Spree, my first impulse was to go online and search for other collections of his essays on literature, and I found Housekeeping vs. the Dirt which was published last year. I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

As a matter of interest, out of the 99 books he mentioned, I’ve only read five:
Great Expectations- Dickens
Franny and Zooey– J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye– Salinger
The Lord of the Rings– Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

and these are the ones I now want to read:
George and Sam– Charlotte Moore
Old School– Tobias Wolfe
Clockers– Richard Price (for my husband)
How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World– (also for husb)
Bobby Fisher Goes to War– Edwards
Random Family– Nicole LeBlanc

Rating: 5/5

143 pages, 2004

Read another review at:
Passion for the Page
Books ‘n Border Collies

Tags: 5/5- Loved It, Books on Books, Current Reads

Down and Out in Paris and London

by George Orwell

This is a detailed account of living in poverty in Paris and London. The narrator, an impoverished writer, describes his experiences living in Paris as a dishwasher for a posh French restaurant, and wandering the streets of London usually homeless, searching for lodging and food, consorting with pawnshops, sleeping in charity shelters, rubbing shoulders with bag ladies and tramps. His descriptions of what goes on in the bowels of the French hotel where the restaurant food is prepared makes my stomach turn- for weeks I vowed never to eat in a restaurant again! The attitudes of British law towards vagrants was utterly depressing and raised indignation in my heart for the squashing of human dignity and lack of proper succor for the poor and homeless. Mostly the book described pure misery and frustration trying to live without stable income and thus, a proper roof over one\’s head. In spite of how depressing it is, Down and Out in Paris and London remains one of my favorites of Orwell\’s. It\’s a very engaging read.

Rating: 4/5 213 pages, 1933

More opinions at:
Shelf Life
Sophisticated Dorkiness

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Bios / Memoirs, General Fiction, Past Reads

The Book of Ruth

by Jane Hamilton

I don\’t know why but when I kept seeing The Book of Ruth on shelves I thought it was about Ruth from the bible, some historical fiction or retelling in a modern setting. I couldn\’t have been more wrong! It\’s about a girl from a poor family that I can only describe as \”white trash\” (sorry if the term offends). She\’s rather naive. She grows up and has a kid and never seems to change her situation or better herself much. If you\’ve ever wondered why people continue to live in squalor, with others who treat them miserably, read this book. Even though Ruth\’s value system and interests were totally different from my own, the author did such a good job of portraying Ruth with frankness and honesty that I found myself thinking: well, I can see how she thinks/feels that way. The context of the story is so outside my experience I kept asking my husband \”what does this mean\” and \”what does this refer to?\” until he said \”what are you reading?!\” This story is brutal, hilarious and strange. I liked it just because it was so different and so realistic in a gritty mundane sort of way.

Rating: 4/5 328 pages, 1988

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, General Fiction, Past Reads

Month: January 2008

RATINGS / SUBJECTS: