December 2010 - Page 2 of 2

reading plans

I’ve decided to take on CB Jame’s TBR Dare for 2011.

I’m going the whole way. Only reading books off my TBR pile until April. I’m actually pretty eager to see how far I can get. I might join a few other small challenges during the year, as long as the books are ones already on my shelves, so I won’t be breaking the dare.

It will make me sad not to bring anything home from the library for a while, but I’ve also been feeling sad at not allowing myself go on book-buying binges (even the cheapest sale ones!) until my shelves have been lightened to make room. So if this dare helps me clear off some shelves, then I’ll be very happy to finally go book hunting and fill them up again!

The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

Through a series of brief vignettes, Cisneros tells the story of a young Latino girl growing up in a poor city neighborhood. She mentions her siblings, how she hates her shabby little house, all the various characters in the neighborhood- those she\’s afraid of, admires, thinks are crazy, whatever. How women are oppressed, men often abusive, love and security something everyone searches for in their own way. She talks about how she doesn\’t want to belong there, wants to leave and find something more. The short book is like a collective snapshot of her neighborhood and some thoughts, all slapped together like a collage. One you wouldn\’t get much from unless you already knew the stories behind the pictures. Because, even though so many readers have loved this book (and apparently it\’s taught in schools across the country!)

While I did sometimes like the imagery Cisneros used (other times it just made no sense) it all ran through my head like water through a sieve. Most of the characters in the book are mentioned once and hardly again, so it\’s difficult to get a sense of any of them as people. Even when some of them showed up again, I hardly recognized them. Each little chapter is so short- barely more than a single page- I never felt like I got much meat out of them. The story doesn\’t really progress, it\’s just a collection of moments- which works okay sometimes, but didn\’t here for me. I got to the end and wondered what I\’d just read. Nothing stuck. I didn\’t even get a sense of place at all. Turned back through the pages and not once did I see it mentioned that the neighborhood was in Chicago, like the back cover says. Where does it say that?

I feel like a dissenter here, but I just don\’t get what\’s so great about this book. Maybe I read it too fast. Maybe it\’s better in the original Spanish- although my copy doesn\’t mention a translator, so I wonder if the author wrote this version into English herself? Anyhow, my disappointment with The House on Mango Street certainly doesn\’t encourage me to try anything else by this author.

Rating: 2/5 …….. 110 pages, 1984

more opinions at:
The Zen Leaf
Aelia Reads
Kyusi Reader

Tags: 2/5- Just Okay, Current Reads, Young Adult

Dogear Challenge ends

The end of this month wraps up my Dogeared Reading Challenge. The last book I read for it was Christmas Horse. It was an old used paperback with the cover chipped and worn, and half-separated from the rest of the book.

The other titles I read were:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Making Things Grow by Thalassa Cruso
Animal Orphanage by Ric Garvey
Popular Flowering Plants by H.L.V Fletcher
The Owl Service by Alan Garner
Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Golden Book of Wild Animal Pets by Roy Pinney
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
and Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I have a giveaway of books and bookmarks available for someone who\’s finished the challenge! Simply leave a link to your wrap-up post in order to be entered in the drawing. I\’ll wait until the end of the month, and randomly select a winner from the names the week after. There\’s also a contest going on for who\’s read the Most Battered Book- do you think yours qualifies? Leave a link to show us photos of what sorry shape your book is in, and you can be entered! I\’m planning on selecting the winner of that one by popular vote- more details forthcoming.

The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein

by Theodore Roszak

Roszak retells the story of Frankenstein from the viewpoint of Victor\’s unfortunate bride, Elizabeth. An inquisitive and intelligent young woman, she is taught by tutors in the household, and more particularly, by her adoptive mother the Lady Caroline. Her closeness to Victor is encouraged; more than just brother and sister, they are destined to marry and their union is (apparently) also part of some great experiment (which I could not make head or tails of, as you shall see). So… as part of her education Elizabeth learns to take no shame in her body and gets initiated into a secret cult of women which reveals to her all kinds of ancient female knowledge. I was blasting through the book, enjoying the writing and intrigued by the story until it got to a certain point. Elizabeth\’s gradual awareness of her sexuality was not repugnant to me, but things started to get really weird when Victor was included in some of the secret rites, which started to combine alchemy with eroticism. It was so bizarre. I thought alchemy had to do with turning stuff into gold? what does that have to do with sex? and all the obscure symbolism made no sense either and I got weary of trying to figure it out. The more interesting part of the story was the constant contrast between Victor\’s hunger for scientific knowledge- dissection, mathematics, the new discovery of electricity (we all know to what use he put that!)- and Elizabeth\’s blossoming understanding of the strengths of women- founded in the wonders of nature. But all that alchemy/mystic sex stuff was just too bewildering. It actually started to bore me. Who else has picked up this book? what did you make of it?

I am remember now and have no idea how this book got onto my TBR list. I think I read a review of it somewhere online that sparked my interest, but can\’t find that now. For a few other reader\’s opinions, check out the links below.

Abandoned…….. 425 pages, 1995

more opinions at:
Las Risas
somewhere i have never travelled
The Actress and the Bishop

Tags: 0/5- Abandoned, Speculative Fiction

The Tortilla Curtain

by T.C. Boyle

Set in Southern California, The Tortilla Curtain tells the story of two couples from very disparate circumstances. One is white, well-to-do, living in a gated community, fretting over their safety and security. The other couple is desperately poor, illegal immigrants from Mexico trying to better their lives in this new country. The lives of the two couples intersect when the white guy accidentally hits the Mexican with his car, then just hands him twenty bucks as the injured man flees into the bushes, terrified of being taken to a doctor and then deported. Now unable to work, Candido holes up in the brush at the bottom of a canyon while his young pregnant wife struggles to find work. Everything seems stacked against them, and things just seem to go from bad to worse. Every time they manage to save a little money and hope for a decent place to live, something happens to wipe them out again. Meanwhile, the white couple are at odds with each other: the husband, a nature-lover, enjoys his free access to the hills straight from his backyard; his wife, paranoid about gangs and illegals stealing and spraying graffiti (not to mention her terror of the coyote that threatens her small dogs) is pushing to build a wall around the entire community. All sorts of issues roil around here, and none of the characters are portrayed as black-and-white; they all have their flaws, their sympathies. Even when I hated what the rich folks were doing, I could see why they felt the way they did. This book really packs a punch. Near the end I was smiling when something good finally happened to the poor couple but then everything suddenly spirals into disaster again. It leaves the reader kind of shocked at the end.

But finally, a good read! I simply could not put this one down. Every time a chapter ended I was anxious to continue its thread and find out what happened next. Especially with the Mexican characters. I felt so much more for them, horrified at the depravities they lived through, moved at the final scene which although terribly sad, illuminated the humanity and compassion Candido still had, even while the whole world (it seemed) trod him down.

Rating: 4/5 …….. 355 pages, 1995

More opinions at:
Savidge Reads
The Hays Crew
I Read, I Knit, I Am

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

it never ends

the additions to the ever-growing TBR list. Here’s a list of the titles that caught my eye the past week or so, thanks to all the wonderful bloggers linked to below.

Where the Wild Things Were by William Stolzenburg- Things Mean a Lot
Tell Me Another Morning by Zdena Berger- At Home with Books
Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski- Bookfoolery and Babble
Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer- So Many Books
Old School by Tobias Wolff from Jenny’s Books
My Masai Life by Robin Wiszowaty- Book Addiction
The Story of Sushi by Trevor Corson- Stay at Home Bookworm
Scent of the Missing by Susannah Charleson from Caribousmom
The Gift of Stones by Jim Crace- Ready When You Are, CB
The Night Shift by Brian Goldman- Hooser’s Blook

I\’ve also added to my list This Organic Life and Growing Older by Joan Gussow, thanks to reading some gardening blogs, but I forgot to make a note of who pointed me to them.

Tags: TBR additions

winner!

Patty is the winner of my recent giveaway.
To claim your prize Patty, just email me and I\’ll send your book and bookmarks soon!

Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper

by Harriet Scott Chessman

A quiet, musing sort of novel that I liked well enough, but didn\’t feel any deep connection to or admiration for. O dear. Seems like I\’m starting lots of posts off that way lately…. I can\’t remember what first landed Lydia Cassatt Reading the Morning Paper on my TBR list, but I recently borrowed it from the library to read for my last challenge of the year (wondering if I can get four more books done before the month\’s over!)

The little book is written from the viewpoint of Mary Cassatt\’s sister, who sits as a model for several paintings. It gives an intimate look into the daily life of the artist\’s family, in a particularly painful time of their lives. Because Lydia had just been diagnosed with Bright\’s disease, and was facing her inevitable death. Her musings presented here are broken, wandering from childhood memories to painful moments of illness and death among family and friends (some of which I never quite sorted out) to her desires to comfort her sister who felt bereft at the idea of loosing her sister. It was hard for me to keep track of the family or really feel close to them- I don\’t know much about Mary Cassatt\’s life and this book just felt like a brief snapshot, so I was confused by the mention of names and places left unexplained. A few things did become clear to me- the story of Mary Cassatt\’s relationship with Edgar Degas, and also of the family\’s friendship with May Alcott (sister to the writer Louisa). I did like very much to read of Mary\’s paintings, what inspired them, the creative process she took, her family\’s reactions to them, criticisms Degas made, etc. But much of the rest of the book, although presented quite tenderly, somehow did not touch me. I think because I spent so much time puzzling over who was who and lived where when… I felt like I should go look up wiki to read more about her life so it would be clear to me, but was too tired to bother.

I\’ve been feeling kind of dissatisfied with my reading lately. I can\’t tell if it\’s the books, or just me! Because most other readers were very charmed with this book (see a few samples below).

Rating: 3/5 ……. 164 pages, 2001

More opinions at:
A Fondness for Reading
The Captive Reader
Bermudaonion\’s Weblog

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Art, Historical Fiction

The Lady and the Unicorn

by Tracy Chevalier

Have you ever seen the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries? I\’ve only viewed reproductions of them in books, but I\’d love to see them in person someday.

Tracy Chevalier here has woven a story about what inspired the creation of the tapestries- unknown to history. It\’s certainly not what I expected. In the very first pages the reader encounters the unsavory character of Nicolas des Innocents, the arrogant artist who designed the tapestries. He seems to only think of himself- how great his work is, or how much the ladies like him (even when they don\’t). Everywhere he goes, from the house of the nobleman who commissioned him to create the tapestry designs, or the workshop that wove the tapestries in Brussels, he\’s trying to seduce young women (and constantly causing problems). The story is told through the eyes of several different characters- the artist Nicolas, the wife of the nobleman (who convinced him to make unicorns, not a battle scene as her husband originally wanted), the daughter of Georges de la Chapelle who runs the tapestry workshop, and many other minor characters. It gives the reader a nice look at all the different types of people who were involved in the making of the tapestries, and the layers of social classes at the time. But it also kept me from really connecting to any of the characters, like I had in Girl with a Pearl Earring (which was told from one character\’s point of view and thus felt more intimate). Added to that the fact that I didn\’t really like any of the characters I mostly read the story with an idle curiosity to see what would happen, and out of interest in the tapestry work itself. Although that was hard to picture. At least one diagram of the loom described in the book would have made it easier to understand. So for me The Lady and the Unicorn was an nice enough read, interesting in some respects but in the end rather unsatisfying.

Rating: 3/5 …….. 250 pages, 2004

More opinions at:
Shelf Love
Hooser\’s Blook
The Maiden\’s Court
NovelWhore\’s Blog

Tags: 3/5- Good Read, Current Reads, Historical Fiction

Month: December 2010

RATINGS / SUBJECTS: