A Work in Progress

The Property by Rutu Modan

I'm not sure why I am surprised really . . . but I find it most intriguing and even a little surprising that graphic novels can tell such a good and satisfying story.  I mean one which is done really well feels so complete, not like an episode in something that you expect to be much longer (am thinking, I suppose, of comics I read as a kid which were just serializations).  I love Rutu Modan's writing and her illustrating.  I loved Exit Wounds, and I think I like The Property even more.   It really is a little curious that I find her characters so compelling and real in their way.  But why not, really.  I feel that way when I read a novel, but in this case there are illustrations that go along with the story and help tell it.  The expressions of the characters, all the little visual details, just flesh (sorry, am not trying to be punny here) it out a little more. 

Once again Modan tells a story that has a mystery at its center.  Maybe it is better in this case to say a secret that will be revealed over the course of the novel.  It is a secret that goes back to pre-WWII Warsaw, Poland.  It's a story that is about one thing on the surface but something a little more private underneath.  The story takes place over the course of one week as a woman and her granddaughter return to Warsaw, ostensibly to try and get back a piece of family property that was lost during the war.

Regina Segal is not a Holocaust survivor.  She relocated to Israel, then Palestine, before the war and never returned but left behind people she loved.  So many years later, after the death of her son she returns with her granddaughter Mica.  Regina is a tough-minded sassy older woman and Mica an independent younger version.  There is an obvious affection between the two but it's easy to see that Regina is holding something back from Mica.  As Mica sets off to sightsee and try to find her grandmother's former home, Regina has another agenda entirely.  One that is heartbreaking as she sifts through her memories of her life as a young woman in Warsaw.

As Mica navigates her way through modern-day Warsaw she is followed by a family-friend also traveling to Poland supposedly to attend a convention but he keeps Mica in his sights.  She in turns falls in with a Polish tour guide who more than once saves her from the social snare of her fellow Israeli compatriot, who has his own hidden agenda concerning the Segal women.  Yes, lots of criss crossing paths here and each with its own hidden agendas.  It's as if each character holds a part of a snapshot, tells a little bit of the story from a different angle. 

As Mica falls for her tour guide, and he almost seems too good to be true (a few of his own missteps threatens more confusion to untangle), Regina discovers that not everyone she loved and expected would be gone is actually lost.  It throws her for a loop both physically and psychologically and lays her low.  And Mica is none the wiser, at least in understanding why.  The reader works it all out just as Mica does, a journey we all take together. 

I thought this was such a clever and entertaining bit of storytelling.  I am not sure graphic novels are the sort of work I might return to again later, but in the case of Rutu Modan's books, they are most definitely keepers.  Two entirely different stories but they are signature Rutu Modan-style.  There is a lot of wit in her storytelling, a nice amount of realism to imagine the characters stepping out of the book and into real life.  Apparently the story is based on or inspired by events in Modan's family history so maybe the reverse is true--the people, the stories or inspiration step out of real life and into the pages of her books.

I wish she would publish more.  I have already ordered Jamilti and Other Stories, which is a collection of her shorter works ordered and eagerly await its arrival in my mailbox.  She has a couple of juvenile storybooks that look like easy-readers for young children.  Otherwise I think I will have to dig around a bit online to see some of her other work, like War Rabbit which appears in the 'Graphic Lit' section of Words Without Borders (there is quite a lot of graphic works there which might be a good place to get a taste of other artist's/writer's works).  There are also a number of shorter works by Modan that have appeared on the New York Times website as well as in the New York Times Magazine.  I am especially interested in the works appearing on the website as they are also about Modan's grandmother who fled Warsaw before the war--though I am not sure if she is the same 'character' as Regina Segal or if Mica makes an appearance.  I would happily read more about any of the characters from the two books.  A complete list of her work is found on her Wikipedia entry.

I'm not sure if I will squeeze in anymore books by Israeli authors this year, but I will most certainly have a few lined up in 2016.  After Jamilti I will have to look for a new graphic artist to try.  Someone recommended Adrian Tomine, whose work I am sure I have seen in the pages of the New Yorker.  Any other suggestions?  If you are familiar with Rutu Modan, someone working in a similar vein (different subject matter of course but similar storytelling styles perhaps) would be of interest.  Closest to hand at the moment, however, is French Milk by Lucy Knisley, which sits right next to my bed.  I think its time has come.

November 29: Reading Notes

I'll soon be able to cross another book from the list, but I probably won't finish the last novella in Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever until tomorrow.  It also happens to be the story I was planning on writing about today had I finished.  Alas, it will wait until next weekend and instead there is still plenty of other bookishness to write about.

I did read (listen to actually) this week's New Yorker (November 30 issue) story by Rachel Kushner.  It's the first time I have read anything by her and I do plan on reading more of her work.  "57" is a fairly bleak story, very eye opening and it makes me thankful (fittingly for this weekend) for the calm and sedate life I lead.   The number 57 is the IQ of the character in the story who commits a more heinous crime the day he is released from prison than the initial crime that put him there.  He is then sentenced to life in prison and the story follows him, via his thoughts through his experiences.  It's a thoughtful and thought provoking story.  In a sense it is easy to judge someone like that yet, you also feel a certain amount of pity or sympathy as the man was dealt a pretty rotten hand of cards and his life just sort of snowballed down a bad path.  You can read Kushner's Q&A about the story here.

Even though I didn't finish any books this long weekend, I still managed to spend a little quality time reading and made some progress in several books.  When I wasn't reading I was having a really good meal here; my favorite restaurant (actually I combined reading and eating) and anything you choose from the menu will be delicious.  I had grilled levain with roasted sweet potatoes, ricotta cheese and lentils.  Yum.  I am now volunteering twice a month here, and so spent an afternoon a lovely afternoon the day after Thanksgiving tearing tickets to the special exhibit.  The people are nice, the surroundings gorgeous and for me it was a much more preferable way to spend Black Friday than even thinking of shopping.  I also saw a fantastic film here.  Next to books, going to movies is my favorite thing to do.  I know I have been lamenting how many fewer books I seem to be reading the last few years.  I can tell you what I have been doing in place of reading . . . going to movies.  The film was such an amazing slice of life that it verged on the literary to be honest.  And just like I enjoy reading books in translation and seeing how other people live in other places, so I like foreign films for the same reason.  Maybe I need to look for some books about cinema.  I am not even sure where I would start, but I see an opportunity to expand my reading and combine the two things I like most.  I easily go to at least one movie every week and sometimes when I am feeling especially indulgent I have even gone to two or three if there is a good run of films.   

Of course watching films sometimes inspires me to read a book afterwards.  I want to read more about the suffragettes and silent films, and now I think I need to read Macbeth in anticipation of the new film adaptation that looks really impressive from the trailer.  I have not read much Shakespeare, and haven't watched many of the film adaptations even though there are enough out there to keep a person busy for a very long time.  To that end I have dug out from my bookshelves The Oxford Shakespeare Macbeth edited by Nicholas Brooke.  The introduction alone is nearly 100 pages.  I am not sure how I should approach this.  Should I just throw all caution to the wind and dive right into the play?  I know only the barest minimum about Macbeth I'm sorry to say.   Maybe I should get the Macbeth Made Easy?  As weird (or silly perhaps) as it sounds I have both a fear of Shakespeare and a desire to read/watch more of him.

On less shaky ground is the rest of my more recent reading.  While I didn't finish any books over the break I did finish a couple of books just prior and my 'must write about these books soon' stack keeps increasing.  I finished (finally) my 1947 Club book--only a month late, another really excellent graphic novel (with the intention of reading whatever else I can find by the author and other graphic novels in general), a recent release that was good if a little uneven for me, and another of the Little House books. 

Let's see . . . along with Andrea Barrett I have been dipping into Margaret Laurence's A Jest of God (maybe I'll share a teaser this week and tell you more about it), and spending some quality time with Mary Russell in Justice Hall.  Oh, and temptation has finally gotten the better of me.  I have a stack of new (or not new but ready to add a 'new' title to the reading pile) books that I have been itching to start reading.  I caved in and have started Anthony Quinn's The Blood Dimmed Tide.  I have barely started but it looks to be a very entertaining read.  It is the first of three historical novels set in Ireland during WWI and the Irish War of Independence.  I think the stories themselves are unrelated but the period brings them together as a trio.  This one makes use of a number of real people as characters, which is always iffy, but I think Quinn will likely pull it off.  Besides, doesn't this sound good?  "Surrounded by spies, occultists and Irish rebels, [Yeats and Charles Adams] are led on a gripping journey along Ireland's wild Atlantic coast, though the ruins of its abandoned estates, and its darkest, most haunted corners."  A decidedly, 'it was a dark and stormy night' sort of read, eh?

So, that was my weekend in a nutshell.  How did you spend yours?

Clearing the Deck Continues

Hmm.  Almost exactly a month in and how are things going?  This is where I started last month, if you recall.

1. A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor
2. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Justice Hall by Laurie King
4. Blackbird by Tom Wright
5. Wildwood by Roger Deakin
6. So Big by Edna Ferber -- reading the last 100 pages now!
7. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (YA novel)
8. Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart -- less than 100 pages here, too!
9. Death on Site by Janet Neel
10. Fall of Giants by Ken Follett --this one is iffy since it is a chunkster of a book, though I am far enough in that I am loathe to set it aside now.
11. At the Source by Gillian Clarke
12. Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett -- just the novella at the end of the book to read!
13. Vienna Melody by Ernst Lothar (for Caroline's German Lit Month in November)

Two books crossed off the list as I have finished them, and a third (the last in the list) removed since I knew it would be more than I could manage at the moment.  Sadly I have only read one short story by a German writer, which I never got around to writing about, so German Literature Month this year is a bit of a bust for me.  I did finish The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and I do still hope to read the last three Little House books before the end of the year as well.  Otherwise there has not been much of a reduction of the current reads pile.  Of course, I finished two other books not on the list, so that is a different kind of progress, right.

I am hoping to finish reading and cross off the Ferber and Stewart this week and maybe even the Barrett.  So that still leaves seven books to finish in December.  I can read seven books in a month, especially when they are already mid-read in some cases, but I think it might be overly optimistic that I will finish all of these plus three more Little House books.   And then (shhh--) there are the other few books I started reading (on the side, so to speak . . . which I am mostly fine with carrying over into the new year) in the last month.

Well, you can't fault a person for trying.  And it will be good to tidy things up as much as possible and maybe clear the decks by other means--if a book has been languishing, if I have still not picked it up in the last few weeks and if I hadn't gotten very far into the book in any case, maybe it needs to be set aside for another day.  I hope I won't have to do that, however.  To that end, more reading time is what I need of course.  Since this is a holiday week anyway and I expect foot traffic to be very low, I am taking the rest of the week off in anticipation of Thanksgiving on Thursday and my long weekend.  I might check in later this week, but regular bookish postings will resume on Sunday with hopefully the last of the Barrett book!

Have a great week everyone and I will be back soon to tell you all about the last books I've read (and hopefully a few more from this list will be on the agenda as well).

Short Story Sunday: Catching Up

I've spent the last week trying to catch up with my New Yorker short story reading.  How easy it is to fall behind when those magazines arrive in the mailbox every week.  With my subscription I get access to the digital issue as well, which works out nicely as I can read them at the gym using my tablet.  Prop it against the machine and hands free I can exercise and read at the same time.  One better, often the digital edition has accompanying audio.  More often than not the author reads her or his work, so I get to also plug in my headphones, block out all the background noise and get lost in a good story.  There really is nothing like having a story read aloud. So, a little rundown of some very good and very memorable stories I have read and listened to lately.

Mark Haddon reads his story "The Weir" in the November 16 issue.  What a crazy good story.  You know how sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  We'll how about a roundabout of that--truth is stranger than fiction, but sometimes things like what happens in Haddon's story do happen in real life and make for good stories, too.  A man is out walking his dogs.  He's reflecting on his wife, with whom he is now estranged and his son who has been gone for three years without even a peep of contact.  Maria's left and he's happy he's been coping so well all things considered.  But of course there are rough patches, like today.  And then he sees a woman crossing a small bridge and she prepares to jump in.  He calls out to her to try and stop her, but backpack on, she goes over the side.  It happens in an instant and he knows better, the water rushing past, but when he sees her bob up he dives in after.  Through luck or tenacity he manages to fish her out, barely conscious.  She's a mess--physically and emotionally and psychologically, but then in his own way, so is he--and she begs him not to take her to the hospital.  And so begins a most curious friendship.  It's funny how two of the most unlikely people can become friends under the strangest of circumstances.  You can read the Q&A with Haddon here.

Julianne Pachico's story "Honey Bunny" in the November 9 issue is about a world I will never know, and that's okay.  The story opens in a nightclub with a young woman 'connecting' with a guy and she offers him some 'goodies', which turn out to be drugs.  You watch this young woman as she navigates a life that seems very much on the edge.  She's a student studying fashion and on the surface you think she must just be a partier who just lives too much on the edge and isn't managing things very well.  You only get her perspective, and while she's sort of abhorrent, I couldn't help but feel sorry for her and the mess she's in.  Through her memories of growing up in Columbia you see what a wealthy young woman she is and had a life of entitlement in her country and then had to leave it very quickly.  You get a glimpse of a young woman, maybe even a child who was manipulated by her family to do things she shouldn't have but probably didn't know any better.  Whatever opportunities she might have in a new country are overshadowed by her addictions and you wonder what will become of her.  Pachico's Q&A is here.

Another story with ties to South America in the November 2 issue is Ariel Dorfman's "The Gospel According to Garcia".  Garcia is the subject of this story, but we never meet him directly.  It's not even clear what happened to him.  It's not even known exactly where or when the story takes place and whether Garcia left of his own accord or was removed.  And if so, why.  His ideas and teachings take on a very different hue then, filtered through the things the students think about him.  He was a teacher who is now gone and his class has been taken over by a substitute.  I love stories like this.  You feel you are looking at someone but not exactly at them.  More like seeing their reflection in a mirror, or in this case his reflection in the response of his students.  In the Q&A Dorfman calls Garcia a "spiritual guide" to his students.  It's not really the substitute teacher telling the story, nor really one student, rather a 'collective voice'.  The students are matching the two teachers, knowing what Garcia was teaching them and understanding some of the lessons, but . . .  He's given them a framework to live by without really reinforcing the structure.  I think this is a story with hidden meaning somewhere between the lines.

A very remarkable story by Lesley Nneka Arimah, which left me shaking my head a little with chills running up and down my spine for a number of reasons.  "Who Will Greet You at Home" sort of freaked me out at first yet I read it with relish anyway.  It felt almost folksy to me, though Arimah (who was born in Nigeria but now lives in Minnesota) said in her Q&A that this is a myth of her own invention.  Unlike the other stories, this one was not read by the author, which makes me wonder what her narration would have been like.  In this story young women create their own babies--they begin as dolls made out of different materials and then eventually take on life form based on what their 'mothers' fashioned them out of.  The materials might make a child one of sadness like, Ogechi, but she wants a child of strength.  She works in a salon, whose owner takes payment in the form of joy or happiness taken from the giver.  Ogechi's other baby didn't survive and so she creates one out of the discarded strands of hair that she sweeps from the floor.  This is not something that should be done, and Ogechi knows of risks, but she does it anyway.  The child does grow and become strong, but frighteningly so.  I would say this story verges on the macabre, but there is something more to it, a message that is actually quite subtly done behind that horror of the story. 

All the stories I read/listened to this week were pretty amazing and quite memorable each in its own way, but if you only have half an hour and could just choose one to read (you can click on any of the links to read them online), let me nudge you to read Lesley Nneka Arimah's story, which I thought was really outstanding.  A little freaky but it packs quite a wallop.   Unfortunately she has nothing else published at the moment but is working on a collection of stories and a novel.  I'll be watching for more of her work.

I didn't get to the current issue's story, which is by Ann Beattie, but I will be listening to it this week and hopefully stay on track for the rest of the year.  I haven't been writing about all the stories I've been reading and am not sure I will get around to filling in the gaps with the New Yorker stories, but they remain one of my best weekly reads and I will certainly continue reading on into next year.

A Careful Matron, I am Not!

I have no idea where I bought this book or when, but The Housekeeping Book of Susanna Whatman, introduced by Christina Hardyment is turning out to be quite the little gem.  Little indeed, since it is a slim sixty-page book that has all sorts of helpful advice for the 18th-century housewife.  I use the term loosely considering the housekeeping book was written by the lady of the manor for her servants!  I don't imagine women were called housewives back then, however since in the last quarter of the 1700s women certainly were not working outside the home.  I love books like this that show some aspect of life and how people lived so long ago.  And I am sure this is pretty accurate, too, since it is a primary resource more or less.  

It is interesting and very illuminating, too.  I already more or less knew this, but the book is just affirming how I would not then (and probably don't now either) fit the picture of respectable, genteel womanhood.  I would have frowningly been looked upon as a failure to my sex, I'm afraid.  I'll tell you more about the book next week, since I have a bit more to finish this weekend, but this is what would have been expected of a proper lady per a "Housekeeping" book early in the twentieth century.

"The modest virgin, the prudent  wife, and the careful matron are more more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queans."

Blustering?  Well, now that just puts me in my place.  Do I perceive someone feeling a little inadequate?  Or maybe just a little too full of themselves and perhaps a little pompous?  It's always a little disconcerting, however, when another woman shares the same sentiments as her closed-minded male counterpart.  Marion Harland was a domestic expert born in Virginia and writing in the 1870s.  Here's her two cents:

"The chief end of woman is home-making.  After all the study of her capacities and capabilities, after all the proofs she has given of her power to rule the wide empire, master the abstruse sciences and write the great book, the final conclusion of the thinker is synonymous with the earlier judgement of nature.  Her first duty is to be a wife and mother and make a house.  Other walks are open to her if for any reason she is unable to fulfil the purpose of her being, but in so far as the opportunity to do this is denied to her, she is, in a sense, a FAILURE." (Modern Home Life, 1902).

My.  It would seem I am a FAILURE (Ms., oops Mrs. Harland's emphasis on the word by the way).  That's okay, though.  I can honestly say I do not feel deprived in the least.  I rather relish my freedom!  Dust bunnies may lurk beneath my bed and piles of books may accumulate where they shouldn't, but I feel in no way a failure because of this.

New Books (Lust): A Thursday Thirteen

For those of us in the U.S., can you believe Thanksgiving is just one short week away?  Next to having a slice of yummy pumpkin pie (my favorite) I am greatly looking forward to having some solid uninterrupted reading time.  Forget the mall the day after the holiday, I'll be spending at least some of the day doing some serious reading.  I guess, however, it is not too soon to be thinking of the other big holiday just around the corner that comes next.  I have been working on making a holiday list that is both thoughtful and in keeping within a budget that will need to be attended to very soon.  I'm a great fan of list making, and I admit that my own bookish wishlist (less an actual wishlist than a place to keep track of new books that coming out that I want to take a closer look at) has been growing, too.  

I have a feeling a gift card might make its way into my holiday stocking, so here are a baker's dozen of books that I might spend it on:

1. The Madwoman Upstairs, Catherine Lowell -- "In Catherine Lowell’s smart and original debut novel, the only remaining descendant of the Brontë family embarks on a modern-day literary scavenger hunt to find the family’s long-rumored secret estate, using only the clues her eccentric father left behind, and the Brontës’ own novels."

2.  Sunday's on the Phone to Monday, Christine Reilly -- Okay, I must admit that part of the draw of this book is the great title!  But the story sounds good, too.  "With prose that is as keen and illuminating as it is whimsical and luminous, debut novelist Christine Reilly tells the unusual love story of this family. Poignant and humane, Sunday’s on the Phone to Monday is a deft exploration of the tender ties that bind families together, even as they threaten to tear them apart."

3.  The Beautiful Possible, Amy Gottlieb -- "This epic, enthralling debut novel—in the vein of Nicole Krauss’ The History of Love—follows a postwar love triangle between an American rabbi, his wife, and a German-Jewish refugee."

4.  The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, Sarit Yishai-Levi -- This one I have mentally starred as a must-read.  If I knew someone I might beg a review copy off of, I would grovel.  I guess I shall try and wait patiently for spring--something to look forward to.  "Spanning decades, Sarit Yishai-Levi's The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem paints a dazzling portrait of a family and a young nation as they struggle to find their way even as others try to carve it out for them."

5.  The Two-Family House, Lynda Cohen-Loigman -- "Brooklyn, 1947: in the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born minutes apart to two women. They are sisters by marriage with an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic night; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear and their once deep friendship begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it. One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy. Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost but not quite wins."

6.  The Good Liar, Nicholas Searle -- "Spinning a page-turning story of literary suspense that begins in the present and unwinds back more than half a century, this unforgettable debut channels the haunting allure of Atonement as its masterfully woven web of lies, secrets, and betrayals unravels to a shocking conclusion."

7. Enchanted Islands, Allison Amend -- "Inspired by the mid-century memoirs of Frances Conway, Enchanted Islands is the dazzling story of an independent American woman whose path takes her far from her native Minnesota when she and her husband, an undercover intelligence officer, are sent to the Galápagos Islands on the brink of World War II."

8.  The Translation of Love, Lynne Kutsukake -- Isn't the cover of this book gorgeous?!  " Told through rich, interlocking storylines, The Translation of Love mines the turbulent period to show how war irrevocably shapes the lives of the conquered—and yet the novel also allows for a poignant spark of resilience, friendship, and love that translates across cultures and borders to stunning effect."

9.  The Extra, A.B. Yehoshua -- Score!  Another book I am seriously lusting after (and would beg for a review copy of).  I love Yehoshua's work and am thrilled to see a new book by him coming out.  "From the internationally acclaimed author of A Woman in Jerusalem, a novel about a musician who returns home and finds the rhythm of her life interrupted and forever changed."

10.  As Close to Us as Breathing, Elizabeth Poliner -- "In 1948, a small stretch of the Woodmont, Connecticut shoreline, affectionately named "Bagel Beach," has long been a summer destination for Jewish families. Here sisters Ada, Vivie, and Bec assemble at their beloved family cottage, with children in tow and weekend-only husbands who arrive each Friday in time for the Sabbath meal."

11. At the Edge of the Orchard, Tracy Chevalier -- "From internationally bestselling author Tracy Chevalier, a riveting drama of a pioneer family on the American frontier."

12.  Behave, Andromeda Romano-Lax -- "With Behave, Andromeda Romano-Lax offers a fictional biography of Rosalie Rayner Watson, a woman whose lab work is now widely repudiated but who in her time was at the cutting edge of parenting psychology. Both moving and horrifying, Behave is a thought-provoking and compelling novel about the meaning of motherhood."

13.  The Cosmopolitans, Sarah Schulman -- "A modern retelling of Balzac's classic Cousin Bette by one of America's most prolific and significant writers. Earl, a black, gay actor working in a meatpacking plant, and Bette, a white secretary, have lived next door to each other in the same Greenwich Village apartment building for thirty years. Shamed and disowned by their familied, both found refuge in New York and in their domestic routine. Everything changes when Hortense, a wealthy young actress from Ohio, comes to the city to "make it." Textured with the grit and gloss of midcentury Manhattan, The Cosmopolitans is a lush, inviting read. The truths it frames about the human need for love and recognition remain long after the book is closed."

So many good new books to look forward to!  It feels like such a long ways away from Spring, but knowing there are so many wonderful books on the other side makes these short days (and soon cold, snowy days, too) so much more bearable.  Do you have any particular books you are looking forward to?

A Few Chilly Morsels from The Long Winter

I had high hopes of finishing The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder this past weekend, but then I always overthink things.  I like to imagine myself all comfy in my rocking chair with something warm close at hand to sip while reading.  I even had a little free time on Saturday and was all ready to read, but the week before had been a particularly busy one . . . so I sat down with my stack of books and then promptly started dozing off.  Not a reflection on my reading choices, I must hasten to add, but just too comfortable and relaxed.  So my reading time went bust.  I read a few pages of my book and now will get back to it in earnest this week.  If nothing else I hope to finish by Friday so I can pick up the next book (I still have high hopes of reading the last three Little House books before the end of the year).

I was sure I had read the book when I was young, but then so much of it seemed new to me.  Now I am recognizing bits, but no matter, either way I am enjoying it immensely. Well, enjoying it as much as a story about a blizzard-y winter on the Dakota Plains can be enjoyed.  It makes me thankful that I can indeed sit inside and lounge on my rocker with something hot to drink and know if I look up there are no nails poking through my ceiling fuzzy with frost.  Oh, and I don't need to break a layer of ice that has formed over a cup of water that might be close by.  I have decided I would be a complete wimp if I had to endure a winter like the one the Ingalls family is dealing with.

Since this is the book that is my constant companion at the moment, I thought I would share a few teasers (hopefully you won't get too tired or bored by hearing about the Ingalls family as I read my way through the last books).  I've alternately been shuddering (from cold) and chuckling from the things Laura and Mary say.  First the shudder:

"The cold and the dark had come again.  The nails in the roof were white with frost, the windowpanes were gray.  Scraping a peephole only showed the blank, whirling whiteness against the side of the glass.  The stout house quivered and shook; the wind roared and howled.  Ma kept the rag rugs tightly against the bottom of the doors, and the cold came crawling in."

"It was hard to be cheerful.  Morning and afternoon, holding the clothesline, Pa went to the stable to feed the horses, the cow, and the heifer.  He had to be sparing of the hay.  He came in so cold that he could hardly get warm.  Sitting before the oven, he took Grace on his knee and hugged Carrie so close to him, and he told them stories of bears and panthers that he used to tell Mary and Laura.  Then in the evening he took his fiddle and played the merry tunes."

Hmm.  Cheerful?  I would be downright cranky personally.  What a different world it was--no roads, so Pa has to struggle to dig the horses out when they fall into drifts, and a train that cannot pass with the tracks covered.  No going to the store for supplies and here it is almost Christmas and the celebration is promising to be a very lean one (keeping in mind all the previous holidays filled with all sorts of delicious foods and little gifts).  I know the book is set firmly in the period in which it was written and stories like this for children had some piece of advice or a guiding hand on how to live life well, but this made me chuckle.  I am more like Laura.  Mary is a great character, but she is just too Good sometimes.  Remember those frosty nails . . .  Ma has just told the girls that Christmas might be a quiet one and perhaps they should save the bundle of magazines that were brought back after Pa fetched the mail.  Some little treat to look forward to on Christmas day. 

"After a moment Mary said, 'I think it is a good idea.  It will help us learn self-denial'."

"'I don't want to,' Laura said."

"'Nobody does,' said Mary, 'But it's good for us'."

"Sometimes Laura did not even want to be good."

How often do you come across a fifteen-year-old (or thereabouts) like Mary who is into learning self-denial?  At least Laura knows her limitations.  That passage made me chuckle.  I love these stories, but yes, lots of little guidances for children on how to live good lives.  And what do I remember/take away from the stories?  I vividly remembered the maple syrup harvests and making maple sugar snow!  And that green pumpkin pie will remain fresh in my mind for some time to come as well.  Fingers crossed for the girls that Santa does indeed make his way to their homestead despite the snow.

Popular Fiction, or a Little Leisure Reading

Guess what task I have been assigned at the library where I work?  I was thrilled when I was asked to curate a small new collection of books for our library patrons made up purely of popular fiction.  These are books meant to be leisure reading for our students, faculty and staff who need a little break from their studies and research.  I began selecting books in the summer and once my initial money was spent it was approved that I could have my own small budge to continue refreshing the collection.  I even have my own special fund code so I can track expenses.   

I've worked in an academic library for more than fifteen years now and have always envied the librarians who get to do selecting for their collections.  I never imagined I might be able to do more than order books and pay invoices (books chosen by others) and only occasionally request that something be ordered (luckily our librarians are very good about approving patron/staff suggestions).  So, all the books you see here were my choices.  I've been trying to track materials to see what is circulating.  Usually there is about a third of the collection circulating at any one time.  Most popular titles seem to be thrillers and science fiction/fantasy.  I wonder if I should even be the tiniest bit flattered (well, maybe not) that a book or two has grown feet and walked off (that would be with the help of someone sneaking it out of the building . . .) it appealed so much to someone. 

The challenge, of course, is making sure I am ordering a variety of titles, authors and genres so there are books to appeal to every taste (and not just my own!).  I do lots of browsing of reviews and bestseller lists.  My only parameters are that the book must be fairly recently published, in paperback and a book that we would not normally hold in our academic collection.  So it is pretty free reign and I try and ask for suggestions from the librarians a student workers.  Now that I have a small set budget I will be scrutinizing my own choices very closely.  I am always open to suggestions, so if you have a favorite popular fiction title (any genre and I am especially always looking for science fiction/fantasy since I don't tend to read that genre) do share. 

There are several small sofas and chairs in the area, too, and I am always pleased to see a patron with one of the books pulled out and reading while they have a break between classes.  The next best thing to buying myself a new book is buying one for another reader to discover!

Short Story Sunday: About My Aunt

Not long ago I was thinking that my short story Sunday posts had outlasted their usefulness.  I have been doing them for a few years now.  I think they are almost more for me than for anyone else these days.  If I know I am going to write about whatever I happen to be reading each week (short story-wise of course), then I am more apt to keep up on my reading--whether it is reading one particular collection or just dipping into a whatever happens to pique my curiosity.  I love reading short stories.  I love coming across something unique and special and all in one small compact story.  But writing about my reading seems to be increasingly difficult for me.  As much as I love blogging (it is more the conversations about books and the comments from other readers that I enjoy), I often toy with the idea of taking a break--short or permanent, I'm not really sure.  But then I come across a book that inspires me once again, that I get excited about and it all feels fresh once more.   Every October a new batch of "Best of . . ." books comes out.  Sometime I cave in and buy a stack of them, sometimes I talk myself out of any of them (I can always rely on the library to help me out) and sometimes I splurge on just one.  Of course it had to be The Best American Short Stories 2015 edited by T.C. Boyle. 

This year marks the centennial of the annual collection of the years best published short stories.  It is a nice, hefty volume of twenty of the best stories published between January 2013-January 2014.  I have this little fantasy (well, less a fantasy and more a desire) to own the entire run of volumes, but it would be quite a project to try and find each volume going all the way back to 1915.  Besides, I think the stories in the earliest volumes might be a little iffy (in terms of quality) and they are probably expensive and hard to find.  And I can find the whole run of them at the library where I work.  But I do have a few of the editions.  Of the twenty stories five of them appeared in the New Yorker, so I should have read them all.  Interestingly T.C. Boyle's favorite story, "Madame Lazarus", was also a favorite of my own when I read it, too!  (I have fallen behind in my New Yorker reading and have not been writing about the stories I have read--part of my growing reading/blogging inertia it would seem).  It is stories like that one that make me want to continue with my weekly short story reading. 

And stories like Joan Silber's "About My Aunt" that originally appeared in Tin House (a magazine I used to subscribe to, but let the subscription lapse . . . maybe I should think about getting it again).   In his introduction Boyle talks about the daunting task of whittling down the field of possibilities from the 120 finalists to just twenty and looking for stories that "grabbed him" in some way.  If he expected anything, he expected to be surprised--"because surprise is what the best fiction offers" and that is what Silber offered me, too.  I am also looking for something that sets a story apart--something that will click in my head as different and unique--a perspective I might not have thought of maybe or a feeling or emotion that I have also encountered even if the character is the polar opposite of me or of people I know. 

Silber's story is ostensibly about a woman named Kiki who in the 1970s travels to Istanbul for a holiday and stays.  She marries a Turkish man but lives by her own rules and follows her own paths--independent and often bohemian.  Ultimately she returns to the US and lives a life filled with knowledge and enlightenment.  The story is narrated by Kiki's niece who looks up to Kiki and admires her, has a son who loves her--yet the two, while similar in many ways, never quite come together in a mutual understanding.   Each thinks the life they lead is the best way to live and can not quite come together to agree that the other has made the right choices--the happiest way to live.  The story is narrated by one woman and see Kiki only through her niece's eyes and through her own comments.  But it is still easy to see what is important to her and how she wants to lead her life.  What is said and unsaid is really very illuminating and I love how Silber brings to life these two characters in a way that is very full yet not through the most direct manner.  To give you a taste of Silber's style and a peek at the personalities of both women:

"I had my own life to live.  And what did Kiki have?  She had her job making deals between the very rich and the very poor.  She had her books that she settled inside of in dusty private satisfaction.  She had her old fabled past.  I loved my aunt, but she must have known I would never listen to her."

I think I am more like Kiki than the niece.  Maybe is is my age or the things that make me most happy--learning and books and the fact that I am (ultimately) just fine on my own.  Probably the niece would feel sorry for my boring life, too.  (But that's okay--I wouldn't want hers either).

A well executed story.  One in which the characters come alive for me.  They might not reflect exactly how I live, but I can imagine it.  I won't finish the collection by the end of the year, but this is one I will happily dip into until I read all the stories.  I am now trying to talk myself into waiting to buy 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories edited by Lorrie Moore, which is a compilation of the best of the best of the stories published over the past century.  Not every year is represented and some years have several stories, and like any collection it is likely quite subjective in the choices but it looks like a keeper.   Give me a little time and I will have rationalized why I should have a copy now rather than waiting.

End of the Week Bookish Mishmash

I've received a few really gorgeous "reading women" postcards in the mail recently and I have two to share today.  One at the top of the post and one at the bottom.  This painting (thanks so much Cath!!) is called "Reading by Lamplight" and the painter is George Clausen (1852-1944).  It is in the collection of the Leeds City Art Gallery.  Clausen was English and now, of course, I must go in search of his other work.  Now that it is properly Fall--we have finally had our first freeze and first snowflakes (both during this past week), it seems particularly fitting. 

I hope I can spend a little time in just such activity this weekend, though reading in lamplight might be a little too soporific for me.  It is forecast to be sunny (though cool) so hopefully I can actually make a little progress on clearing the decks as I mentioned earlier.  I've shortened that list by three, but one is a book I had second thoughts about reading just at this moment.

What I have been reading however, and what I will likely reach for this weekend . . . I am hoping to finish Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter.  Just reading the book makes me shiver.  Nothing like a blizzard on the prairie in October.  The first of what might be many I suspect.  I know I complain about the cold, but this should really put it all in perspective for me.  There is 'cold' and then there is 'Cold'.  Minus forty degrees in an uninsulated house with only a stove to heat it?  Yup, that's cold.  I feel for Laura and her sisters for having to sleep in the attic area where the nails turn frosty and just looking at them makes her shiver.  It makes me shiver, too!

My gym book has been Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes.  It is a YA novel in the style of the Hunger Games.  The twist is the society is modeled after the Roman Empire.  I like it, but I must admit I am not sure if I am really the best audience for books like this--a fantasy world where the characters must fight to the death for survival.  It is interesting and distracting enough to keep me occupied during my workouts, but I may not be reaching for another book from this genre right away when I finish.

I am, however, thoroughly wrapped up in Amy Stewart's Girl Waits with Gun.  I began reading it a while back but then got sidetracked (which happens to me far too often I fear).  I picked it up a week or so ago and just fell right into the story and now want to reach for it more than any of my other books at the moment.  It reads quickly, but I am not sure I will finish it this weekend.  Fingers crossed for some long chunks of quiet reading time.  It is based on the true story of the first female deputy sheriff.  I wonder if Stewart will write another book with these characters?  I do hope so.   

I felt an urge (actually saw this on a list somewhere and it caught my eye) to begin reading (yes, complete impulse choice--but that's okay, even if it is not one of my 'must finish by the end of the year books') Zoe Heller's The Believers.  I am not too far in, but it is compelling reading.  I absolutely loved her Notes on a Scandal and found it utterly engaging.  I am hoping this will be the same.  I'll let you know.

I might see what else is on offer from my nightstand, but I imagine I will be kept very busy with this little stack.  What about you?  Is reading in the plans for your weekend?  For a little inspiration, see below!