March 2010 - Page 2 of 2

The Early Diaries of Anais Nin

by Anais Nin

Anais Nin was a famous feminist writer. She lived in France, and had a long friendship with Henry Miller. From an early age she knew she wanted to be a writer, and began writing poetry and short stories. She became famous for her erotic writing and is well-known for her extensive diaries, which she began at age 11 and continued for sixty years. At the time I read the first few volumes of her diaries, I really didn\’t know much about her, or why her writing was famous. All I knew was that I was reading the innermost thoughts and aspirations of a young girl who was a fabulous writer. She has a beautiful way with words that I still remember impressing me greatly, even though I can\’t recall any particulars now about the events described in the diaries.

I\’m not sure what made me pick up the first volume of Anias Nin\’s diaries, which I first borrowed from the library as a teen, and later sought out further volumes at used bookstores. (I no longer have any of them). I know I had a goal in mind to read through them all, and took particular pains to search out the early volumes, so I could read them in chronological order. I never made it to the main volumes, which were published first, and start at the point where Nin was recently married to her first husband and about to meet Henry Miller. I made it through the first two early volumes, and perhaps part of the third. I\’m not sure now what made me stop. Perhaps my interest lagged. Perhaps the hint of erotica to come unsettled me- sensuality in books could make me very uncomfortable as a teen.

Anais Nin\’s diaries are among those books I\’m sure I didn\’t fully appreciate as a teenager, and think about revisiting someday. Have any of you read her diaries? What did you think? Should I try them again, or attempt some of her fictional works?

Rating: 3/5 ……. pages various, 1914-1927

Besides searching on Wiki, you can read more about Anais Nin (including extensive quotes from her diaries) on the Official Anais Nin blog.

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

Pit\’s Letter

by Sue Coe

Imagine a dog could tell her story, via a letter to one of her littermates. Pit\’s words gives us the barest outline of her life, but the illustrations show much more, in graphic detail. I found the artwork to be harsh, bloody and pretty disturbing, but the style fit perfectly with the brutality depicted. In the beginning, the dog\’s life was simple, all she wanted to do was love her boy Pat. But Pat himself struggled to find love and acceptance, living in an abusive home. The boy\’s father gets angry when the dog fails in a hunting trip, and separates the two. Then Pit wanders the streets, viewing all kinds of atrocities and unkindnesses humans wreak upon each other- violence, rape, cruelty to the homeless, etc. She ends up in an animal shelter and then a laboratory where the awful experiments are described in more detail than you want to know. Ironically, the boy the dog once loved is now a scientist at the very lab where Pit is now a subject.

This short graphic novel packs a staggering emotional punch. Pit\’s Letter is definitely not for the squeamish. There were little moments of kindness and human decency among all the base behavior, but it wasn\’t enough to balance it out for me. The book felt like a showcase of all the terrible things people can do to each other, and to dogs- something like Nop\’s Trials, only when it\’s visual it has a greater impact on me. I can\’t say I enjoyed it very much, but I was definitely moved.

borrowed from the public library

Rating: 2/5 …….. 48 pages, 2000

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Animals Fiction, Graphic Novels, Past Reads

Four Horses for Tishtry

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Here\’s a book I read a many years ago, as a child browsing in the public library. It\’s about a girl in Roman times who is a slave. Her dream is to save up enough money to buy her family\’s freedom. She works as a performer, driving and riding horses. As her skills improve, she passes through the hands of several different masters, until she finds herself about to perform for Nero himself in Rome. In an effort to make the best show ever, she attempts more complicated and dangerous stunts with the horses, doing things no one has ever tried before, even going against the advice of her trainer. Teaching herself dangerous new skills is not the only obstacle to freedom; she also runs up against corrupt and dishonest people, including her own master. I seem to remember that she wanted to buy the horses and own them herself, but I\’m not clear on that. Has anyone else read Four Horses for Tishtry? I\’d love it if you could remind me of some of the other details!

Rating: 3/5 …….. 218 pages, 1985

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Animals Fiction, Juvenile Fic, Past Reads

bookmarks giveaway

I haven\’t been posting these last few days because busy with the garden, and simply not reading much (or finding time on the computer).

Realized it\’s been a while since I did a giveaway, so I found these two handmade bookmarks (from my art, ink drawings painted with watercolor, laminated and edged with ribbon) which I like for their bright spring colors. If you\’d like one, just leave a comment here before next wednesday (3/17). Two winning names will be drawn at random.

Tags: giveaways

Non-Fiction Five

Um, I thought I had enough challenges for the year already (and I\’m making pretty slow progress on them, because I keep coming across books that aren\’t on my lists!) but I\’m joining Trish\’s Non-Fiction Five Challenge again. (I love her new buttons!)

The goal is to read five non-fiction books between may and september, one of which (at least) is of a different subject than the others. I\’ve dug through my book stacks and come up with these to choose from (trying to avoid the animal books for once):

Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
Fatu-Hiva Back to Nature by Thor Heyerdahl
Enrique\’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
Going to Extremes by Joe McGinnis
Stewing in the Melting Pot by Robert Sanabria
The San Francisco Earthquake by Gordon Thomas
The Quiet Room by Lori Schiller
Other People\’s Dirt by Louise Rafkin
Mortal Lessons by Selzer
The Island of the Colorblind by Oliver Sacks
High School Confidential by Jeremy Iversen
Endurance: Shackleton\’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
Alone: the Man Who Braved the Vast Pacific and Won by Gerard D\’Aboville

The Rumpelstiltskin Problem

by Vivian Vande Velde

The Rumpelstiltskin story, says the author, is full of holes. Think about it. Why would the miller lie about his daughter\’s ability, when the consequences could be dire? Why does Rumpelstiltskin want a baby in the first place? why would he trade for the princess\’s ring, when he can spin any amount of gold he wants? To fill in the gaps, Velde retells the story six different ways, each with a new twist and an explanation to the briefer version we\’re all familiar with. In one story, Rumpelstiltstkin wants to eat the baby. In another he\’s a witch, then a hero, or a beautiful elf. Different personalities for the miller\’s daughter are here too: she\’s a fanatic fan of the king, she\’s bullied by her own daughter, she\’s smart, she\’s lazy, she\’s confused. In one story she falls in love with Rumpelstiltskin himself! My favorite is the one where he was an elf and she slipped sideways through a magic gap to meet him. All the tales are brief, but intriguing and thought-provoking. If you like fairy-tale retellings, be sure to look for this one!

Borrowed from the library.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 128 pages, 2000

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Fantasy / Sci Fi, Past Reads, Short Stories

stinky box

Have you ever made a stinky book box?

I had this book acquired from a swap site that smelled so strongly of cigars I could barely stand to open it. But I really wanted to keep it! So I lined a small box with fresh kitty litter and baking soda, fanned the book slightly and set it down on its edge, so the spine faces up and the pages open a bit. Sealed it all in a large plastic bag for two weeks. Now the book still has some odor, but it\’s pretty faint and very tolerable.

I\’m sure there\’s a better way to make a stinky book box; more air-tight and a better odor-eating material, but this is what I had and it worked pretty well for me!

The Power of Babel

A Natural History of Language
by John McWhorter

This book looks at how languages have evolved and changed over the centuries. I found particularly interesting some explanations of where odd phrases come from, that have lost their original meaning and come to be used for something quite different. (Not all things were easily explained. For example, this quote regarding a nursery rhyme that when you think about it, makes little sense:

“… Jack Horner pulling a plum out of a pie– why did he stick his thumb in rather than his pointer finger? Presumably just in order to rhyme with plum– but then what was a plum pie and how good could that have been? And why did dismembering the pie make him a good boy?” )

Sometimes the writing got a bit convoluted and I would have to read a sentence several times to figure out what it meant. Other times the author wanders off into a side-topic for pages- but those were usually interesting too, so I didn\’t mind too much. For the most part, it was easy to read, made me think about all sorts of things and kept me laughing, especially the author\’s footnotes and asides. That\’s a sure way to make me read a book to the end, even when it\’s dry or confusing in parts- make me laugh, and spark my curiosity. A pretty good book, if you\’re interested in the evolution and structure of languages, or the original meanings of words.

I noticed this title while browsing in a bookstore, and then found it at the public library.

Rating: 3/5 ……. 112 pages, 2001

More opinions at:
The Book of Merle
The Ignoramus Blog
Writers of Color 50 Book Challenge

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

What An Animal Reading Challenge

I\’m signing up for yet another reading challenge! What An Animal III, hosted this year by Socrates\’ Book Reviews. You can read the rules over at the challenge site, but basically it\’s to read six books featuring an animal, or with an animal in the title or on the cover, between now and the end of Feb 2011. I participated in this one last year, and it was lots of fun! I\’ve picked some books off my TBR list I\’d like to read for this challenge, depending on if I can find them at the library:

Chasing Kangaroos by Tim Flannery
For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner
The Hidden Life of Deer by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Voyage of the Turtle by Carl Safina
Suburban Safari by Hannah Holmes
Rats : Observations on the history and habitats of the city\’s most unwanted inhabitants by Robert Sullivan

Arctic Dreams

Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

by Barry Lopez

I hardly know where to start with this book. Arctic Dreams is an overwhelming examination of the arctic landscape and what it has meant to various peoples throughout history, at once detailed in particulars and sweeping in scope. The chapters range from nature writing about animals and their movements across the land to explanations of how soil composition changes the further north you go; the phenomena of the aurora borealis, mirages and other light effects and the many different forms ice takes. There are sections that read like history, and others written purely from the author\’s personal encounters with wildlife and native people. Human ventures into the forbidding land are described, from explorers trying to find the Northwest passage, mapmakers seeking new coasts, adventurers trying to reach the North Pole, men simply looking for economic opportunities (furs, oil, etc) or even, more recently, scientists conducting various studies. Many of the early ventures failed, as the men didn’t understand the land or how to survive in it (compared to the tenacity and skills of the native Eskimos). Some of this got tedious, especially the part about expeditions and missing parties, which not only dealt with how the men struggled to survive when stranded in the ice (more interesting) but also the politics and economics involved in backing the expeditions, and in rescue efforts (dull, with too much information). And I found the section explaining sun halos, mirages, arcs, etc difficult to understand, although at first fascinating (it was hard to picture what was being described. Perhaps some photographs would have helped). My favorite chapters were those about animals and how they live in the cold: polar bears, muskoxen, seals, narwhals, migrating birds etc. There’s even a chapter about how the quality of light and immense grandeur of icebergs inspired artists, with descriptions of particular paintings. Aside from the difficult parts, an astounding book. It describes the landscape as an immense living entity, that requires respect on its own terms. Makes me want to read more about the arctic, and look for more books by Barry Lopez.

Rating: 4/5

464 pages, 1986

More opinions at:
Resolute Reader
DOWN and OUT
Living. Small. Tasmania
City of Readers
Rhapsody in Books

Tags: 4/5- Great Book, Current Reads, Nature

Month: March 2010

Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

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