March 2008 - Page 2 of 4

How To Steal A Dog

by Barbara O\’Connor

My curiosity was perked when I saw this book mentioned online somewhere. Spotted it at the public library, brought it home and read it one night in the bathtub (the best reading spot in my apartment. Hot water must be included). How To Steal A Dog is about Georgina\’s issues with her family\’s homelessness, and her determination to change their situation. Her father\’s abandoned them, they\’ve been evicted and are living out of a car while their mother struggles with two low-paying jobs, trying to save enough to get a new place to live. Georgiana is highly embarrassed and frustrated by their situation. One day she sees a lost-dog sign and makes up a plan to steal someone\’s dog, then collect the reward money. But her plan doesn\’t unfold smoothly, and she continually runs up against her conscience. Faced with the question: is it okay to do something wrong in dire circumstances? Georgina learns some powerful lessons about honesty, friendship, and that money isn\’t everything.

Rating: 3/5 Published: 2007, pp 170

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Juvenile Fic

Winter\’s Tale

by Mark Helprin

I don\’t know how this book ended up on my TBR list. It is a vast, sprawling fantasy of New York City. The main character is Peter Lake, an ignorant yokel who stumbles into the City in the 1800s and quickly falls into an organized group of thieves and petty criminals. One day while breaking into a house he falls in love with a rich girl (one of the most preposterous scenes in the book), who has a terminal illness.

Winter\’s Tale is full of surreal incidents and picturesque language to the point of ridiculousness. I was enjoying it for the sheer fun and astonishment of the word play until I reached page 200 where Peter Lake dropped out of sight and the already meandering plot took off in a direction I couldn\’t recognize. Then I did something I\’ve never done before. I skipped about 150 pages and began reading again, when Peter Lake (like Rip Van Winkle) reappears after half a century has gone by. Having seriously lost interest in the storyline, I skimmed the last fourth of the book, reading only those parts that dealt with Peter Lake\’s search for his legendary white horse that could leap four city blocks and aspired to fly in the sky. Something about the style of this book reminded me a lot of The Tin Drum, or even One Hundred Years of Solitude. If anyone\’s managed to read and like Winter\’s Tale, I\’d love to hear why!

Abandoned Published: 1983, pp 688

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Speculative Fiction

All the Wild Horses

Preserving the Spirit and Beauty of the World\’s Wild Horses
by Dayton O. Hyde

Essays on various groups of wild horses around the world- the familiar (to me) Western mustangs, ponies of Chincoteague and Dartmoor, and less familiar horses of the Namib Desert, French Carmargue, and the Sorraia, Pryor Mountain and Kiger mustangs. There are chapters on the history of wild horses and the controversy surrounding wild horse protection, conservation and management. Most interesting I found was a comparison of the behavior of wild horses and their zebra cousins. And a wonderful, lyric account of how the horses experience a year at Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, which was founded by the author. All the Wild Horses is a beautiful book with absolutely stunning photographs. One I definitely want adorning my coffee table someday.

Borrowed from the public library.

Rating: 4/5 Published: 2006, pp 208

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

Madame Bovary

by Gustave Flaubert

A few days ago I was looking through my shelves for unwanted books in too poor condition to swap to drop at the Book Thing next week, when I noticed a tattered copy of Madame Bovary sitting among the TBR clutter. It came from the same box at my mother\’s house that coughed up The Gulag Archipalego. I picked it up and thought: I really ought to read this. It\’s a classic.

So I tried. I made it through 120 pages about a pretty young wife who finds herself married to a country doctor. He\’s quite content with life, she\’s bored silly. He loves her very much, she finds him dull and repugnant. She longs to experience romance and emotional thrills. For a while she resists her feelings, because of society\’s strict moral code; then gives in and has several secret affairs.

One night when my husband couldn\’t sleep I said \”let me tell you what I\’m reading\” and began to relate the story to him. He was snoring within minutes. Yesterday I made another attempt to read a dozen more pages, and found my attention seriously wandering. So I skimmed through the rest, of Emma Bovary\’s second affair, her husband\’s failure, her ultimate tragic end. (Reminded me very much of Anna Karenina, which I read in high school). Maybe it was a poor translation (Lowell Bair)? maybe the subject just isn\’t shocking to modern readers anymore? I know this is great literature, meticulously constructed by the author, full of symbolism, details and profound portrayals of human nature. But I just couldn\’t sympathize with or like any of the characters, and I got bored. I seem to be in the minority here, so if you want to read great reviews about this book, check out A Guy\’s Moleskine Notebook or A Reader\’s Journal. They give Madame Bovary its due, where I cannot.

Abandoned …0/5… 303 pages, 1857

More opinions at:
Books \’n Border Collies
Ardent Reader

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Classics

A Leg to Stand On

by Oliver Sacks

This book is about a doctor who must adjust to being the patient. As the result of a freak accidental encounter with a bull on a mountain, Oliver Sacks suffered a horrendous injury to his leg causing severe nerve damage and shock. After which he had the strange sensation that the leg was not part of his own body. During his long convalescence the neurologist strove to understand his own physical identity crisis, the psychological nature of illness, and the doctor-patient relationship. Although at times the writing got a bit tedious and lost me in its complex analysis, I still found A Leg to Stand On a really engrossing book. And the role of music in his survival down the mountainside and subsequent healing process is utterly fascinating.

Other books I\’ve read by this author:
An Anthropologist on Mars
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Rating: 3/5 Published: 1984, pp 224

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Nonfiction (general), Past Reads

Nobody\’s Horses

The Dramatic Rescue of the Wild Herd of White Sands
by Don Hoglund

In the 1940\’s the US Government appropriated land from ranchers in New Mexico surrounding the White Sands Missile Range, a top-secret testing site where the first atomic bomb was detonated. Most of the ranchers left their horses on the range, believing their land would be returned to them. But it never was. Eventually the horses became enclosed by the Missile Range security fences. They thrived in the severe desert, their numbers swelling until a drought pushed them towards starvation. In 1994, dozens were discovered dead near a dried-up water hole. Don Hoglund, an equine veterinarian experienced in working with wild horses, was called in to manage the complex and dangerous task of removing over 2,000 wild horses from the Range.

Nobody\’s Horses tells the story of that rescue operation. In addition to describing harrowing roundups and careful handling techniques, the book also tells of all the conflicts between military personnel and animal rights activists, fears of anthrax contamination, reactions to the Oklahoma City bombing. Hoglund traces the ancestry of the wild bands back to the original homesteaders who lived on the land, recounting a lot of Western history. That part of the book became rather dry reading for me, and my interest began to flag near the end. But it is a notable book, full of appreciation and respect for the magnificent wild horses.

Rating: 3/5 …….. Published: 2006, pp 251

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Nonfiction, Current Reads

One Day on Beetle Rock

by Sally Carrighar

Based on several summers\’ observations of wildlife in Sequoia National Park, One Day on Beetle Rock describes the lives of nine different animals, crossing paths and spanning twenty-four hours on a singular location. Each chapter outlines events of the same day through the experience of a different animal: weasel, Sierra grouse, chickadee, black bear, lizard, coyote, deer mouse, stellar jay and mule deer. Written like a novel and full of detailed information on each species, this is one of my favorite pieces of nature writing. If you\’ve ever wondered what the business of day-to-day life is like for another species, this book is an excellent read. It gives a strong picture of what each creature\’s sensations, concerns and consciousness might be like, without over-anthropomorphizing them.

I would like to quote from the forward by Robert C. Miller:

These are stories of the adventures of animals, but with a difference- the stories are of actual animals in an actual place, as the author has observed them. She has watched carefully and recorded truthfully, always with sensitive understanding and a keen awareness of beauty. The tales are fiction, yes, but fiction closely parallel with face. This is real natural history.

A companion to this book is One Day at Teton Marsh, by the same author.

Rating: 4/5 Published: 1943, pp 196

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

Girl with a Pearl Earring

by Tracy Chevalier

This is a fictional account of Johannes Vermeer\’s household, told through the eyes of a young maid, Griet. New to the place, Griet has to learn her trade while facing Vermeer\’s acerbic mother-in-law, tight-lipped wife and spoiled children who taunt and harass her. In addition to her regular duties, Vermeer puts her to work in his private studio, cleaning and doing rudimentary preparations for his paintings (like grinding pigments). The continual mundane labor of Griet\’s days is described in a slow, poetic fashion against building emotional friction in the household, for Vermeer\’s wife is uptight over a many things, the least of which is her jealously. Jealous because Griet alone is privledged to enter the master\’s sacrosanct studio, and jealous because she is also pretty enough that one day Vermeer asks her to pose for him. The Girl with a Pearl Earring becomes a tense household drama and scandal, over the painting of this picture.

Griet is something of an anomaly. She is very quiet, observant, and hardworking, but also (for an uneducated maid) surprisingly outspoken and forward-thinking. Much of the book is about the slow awakening of her intellect and spirit. She stands a quiet observer in an eddy surrounded by the swirl of larger events, which are only half-perceived. Overall the book is so lovely I was able to overlook her unlikely character and enjoy its beauty and prose.

My only complaint is the lack of illustrations; I would have liked to see the paintings as I read about them. If you visit the author\’s website, you will find images of the art, alongside quotes of the text where they are mentioned. It\’s great! I just wish I\’d visited it while I was reading the book. I\’m eager to read another of Chevalier\’s books I\’ve seen mentioned lately, The Lady and the Unicorn, which has as much to do with tapestries as this one had to do with oil painting.

Rating: 4/5 .……. Published: 1999, pp 233

More opinions at:
Ardent Reader
The World Inside My Head

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

Becoming Anna

by Anna Michener

This memoir was written when the author was sixteen. In it, she describes her life up until the point when she was adopted by the Michener family and changed her name from Tiffany to Anna. She describes a childhood of being emotionally and physically abused by her family, then spending most of her teenage years in two separate mental institutions. Most of the book is a horrendous account of inside the mental hospitals- relating all kinds of atrocities (over-medication, incessant verbal abuse, unwarranted and severe punishments) and describing in detail the other teenage patients. All the patients are portrayed as being misunderstood and wrongly placed there; while the adults- doctors, parents and teachers are painted in a negative light. I questioned whether it could have really been so black and white. At the same time, this book resonates with so much pain, anger and bitterness that I have no doubt the author is describing things as she saw and felt.

The ending seemed to wrap up a little too quickly. There were some gaps in the story. Perhaps it was just things she didn\’t feel comfortable sharing, but I felt there must have been a way to fill in the holes and make it more complete. Full of detailed descriptions, colorful language and sardonic commentary, Becoming Anna is a painful yet very compelling book.

Rating: 3/5 Published: 1999, pp 264

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Bios / Memoirs, Past Reads

Midwives

by Chris Bohjalian

Connie, the daughter of a midwife, tells the story of her mother\’s murder trial. During a difficult delivery on a freezing winter night in an isolated farmhouse, Sibyl made a desperate decision to save the baby\’s life, when she thought the mother had died of a sudden stroke. But what if she\’d been wrong? Through Connie\’s eyes we see Sibyl struggle to keep her life from unraveling under the ensuing onslaught of hostility from traditional doctors, men of the law, neighbors and friends alike. Supported by other midwives and her family, Sibyl stands by her decision and defends her occupation, even as she is plagued with disapproval and her own doubt and guilt. Like many Jodi Picoult novels, Midwives deals with a very controversial issue and winds up in a courtroom. It seemed a bit sensationalized and the characters were rather flat, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. However, I felt quite dubious about the daughter\’s final role.

This book has some themes in common with The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, on the subject of traditional versus alternative medicine. It\’s not as good a book, but interesting to think about in the same context.

Rating: 3/5 …….. Published: 1997, pp 372

Read more reviews at:
Book Haven
SMS Book Reviews
Hooser\’s Blook
Ardent Reader

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, General Fiction, Past Reads

Month: March 2008

RATINGS / SUBJECTS: