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One reader's thoughts as she steps from book to book.
Books I've Finished
- "A Christmas Memory"
- by Truman Capote 12/8/12
- "Child's Christmas in Wales"
- by Dylan Thomas 12/7/12
- "One Christmas"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- "The Thanksgiving Visitor"
- by Truman Capote 11/29/12
- Inside Mrs. B's Classroom
- by Leslie Baldacci 11/28/12
- The Bee Eater
- by Richard Whitmire 11/15/12
- There Are No Shortcuts
- by Rafe Esquith 10/28/12
- I'd Like to Apologize to
- Every Teacher I Ever Had
- by Tony Danza 10/21/12
- Corked
- by Kathryn Borel 10/15/12
- Year of Learning Dangerously
- by Quinn Cummings 9/30/12
- A Hologram for the King
- by Dave Eggers 8/23/12
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- by Harper Lee 7/18/12
About Me
- Christine
- I often have a few books with bookmarks in them at once. I enjoy classics more than contemporary works of fiction, often read historical fiction, and love to get glimpses into other people's lives by reading memoirs and biographies.
11 comments:
Raymond Carver's collection of short stories, "Where I'm Calling From". i have a harder time w/ these as no character ever has time to develop and so often the story just leaves hanging questions. there are some i really like tho and will finish today or tomorrow.
Aside from the three cups of tea book I read a funny article about playing ping pong and eating asian food in Austin, Texas. Has anyone read the book about how the earth would recover if humans were eliminated?
Sophia, that guy was on one of the morning shows today. He said that New York City is constantly pumping out groundwater from below the streets and that if people weren't there to keep it up, it would flood. Within 20 years, the columns would break down and the streets would fall. What's the book called?
Nothing but books for the kids' lessons. Some Darwin, evolution, plants, and prehistory. Lucky me, moving on the swamps!
'The World Without Us'
By ALAN WEISMAN
Sometimes when I drive past an old strip mall I like to think of how quickly nature might reclaim the land. The review cited the woods around Chernobyl, and the heat of the earth, and the radioactive animals living in the abandoned site.
Ever since Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon I've wanted to read "Catcher in the Rye" to see how a book could have motivated such an act. It's only taken me 27 years to get around to it - I don't believe in rushing into things.
What a sad, depressing story. Watching from the sidelines while a teenager spirals ever deeper into despair is harrowing. Holden views his existence as being surrounded by nothing but phonies. I have to agree with him to some extent but I cannot feel totally sorry for him. He seems to go out of his way to seek out phonies.
I really wanted him to take the trip west at the end instead of continuing to fester.
It's not that I want all stories to have a fairytale ending. This one haunts me, so I suppose it gets its point across. But I left the book feeling so desolate. Do I understand why Chapman killed Lennon? NO. Just the excuse of an unstable mind I guess.
Christine, I know you like this book. Please tell me WHY?
Continuing with Dracula, and have also picked up A Cat's Diary by Stephen Mo Hanan. Mr. Hanan played Gus and Growltiger in the original Broadway cast of Cats and shares some of his experiences in the book. As a shameless drooling theater geek, I think all this rehearsals/backstage stuff is fascinating. I love the interaction and bonding he describes.
I am reading a VERY good novel from 1927 which is called THE GRANDMOTHERS and is by a novelist I never had heard of until recently with the wonderful name of Galway Westcott. It really is a fascinating portrait of America and is constructed in a series of mini-biographies of a fictional family who are farmers in pioneer Wisconsin. I highly recommend it. In my theatrical guise I just finished the actress Ellen Terry's The Story of My Life and am working my way through all the plays of W. Somerset Maugham, another wonderful, witty, gentle author best know for Of Human Bondage. But is you want an unusual treat and a taste of slightly acerbic American look up Galway Westcott, I doubt you will be disappointed.
Oh, and I also read a wonderful article on a cookbook author...in the New Yorker food issue. Actually all I'm doing primarily so far on my sabbatical is reading...a very guilty pleasure.
Insomniac. I do love the book. Salinger's voice is like no other. It has been copied and copied, but Holden Caulfield is a unique and original character. I understand that Holden speaks to those who feel out of touch with other people and alone in the world despite the crowds, but to use him as an excuse to kill? Chapman could have had any book in the world in his pocket that day. Holden isn't violent. He's gentle and protective. He takes a punch from the pimp Maurice and doesn't do anything to fight back. Instead, on his way to the bathroom after Maurice leaves, Holden starts pretending he's been shot in the stomach, like he's in a movie. That's some of what I love about the book, that this great funny stuff comes out of his pain. I do think humor and sadness sit side by side in some people. And Holden's observations are spot on. I love the things he loves: his little sister Phoebe, his dead brother Allie, his old friend from the neighborhood Jane Gallagher, little kids who are innocent and sincere by their very definition. He's just looking to the few people he can believe in, the ones who don't have ulterior motives or aren't busy tryng to outshine everybody else with their big fat egos. Holden's in a black place at the time of the story. Has he ever had a chance to mourn for his brother? Does he have any healthy role models for dealing with such a loss? Phoebe accuses him of not "liking anything that's happening," and it's true. He's low. He needs help. And where does he go? Home. To her. His parents aren't much comfort to him; he's been packed off to boarding schools one after another. But the story doesn't leave me feeling hopeless for him. I believe he gets the help he needs. I believe he tells his story with some distance and that that weekend was a low as it got for him. Bottom line for me, I guess, is that I "get" Holden. I understand his cynicism and anger and desire to seek out sincerity. And he cracks me up. But look who I married, Mr. Glass Half Empty. And man, he cracks me up, too.
Thanks Christine. You always make me think of things from an alternative angle.
I do agree with you that his relationship with his sister and his emotions towards Allie and Jane are touching. It seems that his devotion to his sister is what makes him stay.
I really didn't find Holden funny though, rather just sad and caustic and sarcastic. And at the end I do not feel hope for him. My feeling is that he is still trapped and will never find a way out. He has no control over his life. Maybe that's how Chapman felt?
Wow, what a great discussion about Catcher in the Rye! I read that as a teenager and loved it at the time, I guess because I had never read anything written in that style before, and it cracked me up probably in the same way it cracked Christine up. I still remember the line about dancing with the uncoordinated girl in the club: it was like dragging the Statue of Liberty around the floor. Hahaha.
I wasn't a very sophisticated reader back then (I'm still not I suppose), but I had high hopes for Holden at the end of the book, even though he was dejected. Maybe there was no reason other than my own wishing, but my hopes were there nonetheless. I figured it was just temporary and all-too-common teen angst.
~Lisa
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