Stephanie Plum #12

Yeah, there is a new Stephanie Plum novel. She is the crazy 30ish female bounty hunter. Very fun reads. #12 is called Twelve Sharp by Janet Evanovich. It is really good so far. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312349483/sr=8-1/qid=1151433454/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1343251-9869657?ie=UTF8http://

Also on audio I've been doing Robert Parker, the ones with the private eye named Spencer. They are fun in the car.

I listened to A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L 'Engle, which I hadn't read for a coon's age and it was still good!

Almost out the door!

I'm leaving for vacation on Saturday (to Mexico), so I had to go fess up at the library and pay my fine in order to get more books.

I checked out Sixpence House (AGAIN), maybe this time I will actually be able to read it before the fines start. And, I also got the Short Stories by Gwyn Thomas (recommended by Max) and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (recommended by AJ, a long time ago - pre-blog).

If I have a chance to get to a different library, I may be able to get the second book in the Hitchhiker series - although I'm concerned that my reading voice will not be nearly as funny as hearing Stephen Fry read the first book.

On the plans for the vacation, the boyfriend is going to take me to an English language bookstore. So, I don't have to worry about running out of books this time. Last vacation, I got a cold and was laying on the couch reading much more than I had anticipated.

I did read a few books recently and haven't posted anything about them. Mom & Dad came to visit and left me a stack of books. I tore through Oaxaca Journal (by the guy who wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), English as a Second Language (I can't remember the author, but it's about a girl who goes to England for a master's degree - fairly fluffy, but entertaining.)

Also a co-worker lent me the new Amy Tan book Saving Fish From Drowning. It was good, but I'm not sure I liked it as much as the others. I was annoyed by a few holes in the plot.

Have a great 4th!

d

Sleeping with Schubert--Not just for music nerds!

This is a fun read. (it was a great beach book!) It reminded my a little of that movie with Lilly Tomlin and Steve Martin where they share a body--what was it called? Anyway, this girl has to share a body with Schubert. The steamy title is a little misleading, since she does EVERYTHING with Schubert after he "shows up". Here is an excerpt from the first chapter where she realizes something is wrong. It starts with her listening to the pianist at Nordstrom department store.

"I tried to walk away but his playing attracted me like a spectator to an Amtrak wreck. Occasional missed notes hit my body like flying glass. I outplayed him in my head, summoning the music's original beauty. When he left for his break, I calmly took his place on the piano bench and began to play.
Through all my grad-school piano lessons I'd only gotten good enough to recognize the skill in others. Suddenly I became an other. I was not like a lifeless puppet, nor a remote-control robot. All the movement came from inside. Muscles flexed, fingers moved, and my mind was filled with a comprehension I had no right to possess. I vibrated like a tuning fork as the music flowed outward. Visions slid in and out of focus. My brain engaged in a psychic tug-of-war with an unseen opponent.
It was a lovely piece I played, one I'm sure I never head before but which felt like an old friend...(chunk taken out here to save space)...When I stopped, the world of Nordstrom fell in on me again. The response to my music was, like, totally Californian. Most of the shoppers shopped on, unscathed by a miracle...(another sloppy editing job, sorry)...
"Hey, lady, how'd you do that?" I turned to see an adolescent boy in trendy, cool-kid clothes. He stared at me, stunned, as if he'd just discovered fire.
"I don't know," I answered. Then the world grew dark, the ocean rushed through my ears, and I gratefully passed out.

I love this excerpt because it was always my dream to sit down at the piano and have it miraculously sound good without having to practice first. After reading the rest of the book I changed my mind. Practice sounds easier than having a musical genius borrow your body.

Blue Like Jazz

This is not typical Christian literature. He calls himself a "realist" and basically just writes about his day to day life. He also challenges a lot of fundamentalist Christian behavior (which should be challenged) and makes it plain that he thinks liberals can be Christians too (an idea very close to my heart). He also says things that a normal "Christian writer" wouldn't say, like that Powell's bookstore is a church for him, and that he gets "fed" at Reed University which is one of the most anti-Christian campuses in the US. I really identified with the way he wanted to apologize for a lot of so called "Christian" behavior that has not been very Christian at all. Also I loved his passion for Christ and his sense of social responsibility to LOVE. Anyway, I recommend this to anybody who is curious about a new, loving kind of Christian movement. Besides being very insightful it is just a good read. Here is a funny passage I liked:
"Here's a tip I've never used: I understand you can learn a great deal about girldom by reading Pride and Predjudice, and I own a copy, but have never read it. I tried. It was given to me by a girl with a little note inside that read: What is in this book is the heart of a woman. I am sure the heart of a woman is pure and lovely, but the first chapter of said heart is hopelessly boring. Nobody dies at all. I keep the book on my shelf because girls come into my room, sit on my couch and eye the books on the adjacent shelf. You have a copy of Pride and Prejudice, they exclaim in a gentle sigh and smile. Yes, I say. Yes I do."

Mr. Vertigo

I just finished reading this book last night. It was a quick read and quite entertaining. The story is told by a man recalling his childhood/life as Walt the Boy Wonder. A boy who could fly. It is a very nice combination of magical realism and historical fiction set in the 1920s-40s.

Mr. Vertigo was recommended to me by Adrian and he thought I would enjoy it because the boy is a huge Cardinals fan. So, periodically he will discuss Rogers Hornsby or Dizzy Dean. It is a very fun book, with enough plot twists and a quick pace to keep the reader very interested.

I think AJ & BJ should read this. (Well, the rest of you should read it also.)

d

New York Times Travel Section

Sunday's Travel section of the NY Times has an article about the Hay-on-Wye bookfair.

enjoy!

d

A Long Way Down

This is the newest Hornby I think. It was not as good as About a Boy or High Fidelity, but it was much better than How to be Good which was terrible. This one was about four REALLY different people who end up spending a lot of time together. I was going to say they end up being friends but that's not quite right. They have a very strange relationship. The only thing they have in common is that they all tried to commit suicide on the same night (New Year's Eve). The best thing about this book is the way Hornby kept making fun of me as the reader because he knew that I wanted a happy ending where everything wraps up nicely. I would quote something along those lines except that Jeremy just took the stack of library books back to the library, so you will just have to read it to know what I mean.

The Glass Castle

This is a true story but it doesn't read like one. Makes my childhood experiences seem pretty hum-drum. I really liked this memoir because it didn't play up some horrible, life changing experience and then blame everything afterward on that event. It was more about the general experience of growing up in a family with parents who refuse to provide for their children, and what the kids learned about survival. They were incredibly resourceful and creative. One of my favorite lines:
"A couple of weeks earlier, Miss Page had gotten the ax when the principal caught her toting a loaded rifle down the school hall. Miss Page said all she wanted to do was motivate her students to do their homework."
Also, I thought this passage was sort of the thesis statement of the book:
"One day Professor Fuchs asked if homelessness was the result of drug abuse and misguided entitlement programs, as the conservatives claimed, or did it occur, as the liberals argued, because of cuts in the social-service programs and the failure to create economic opportunity for the poor? Professor Fuchs called on me.
I hesitated. "Sometimes, I think, it's neither."
"Can you explain yourself?"
"I think that maybe sometimes people get the lives they want."
"Are you saying homeless people want to live on the street?" Professor Fuchs asked. "Are you saying they don't want warm beds and roofs over their heads?"
"Not exactly," I said. I was fumbling for words. "They do. But if some of them were willing to work hard and make compromises, they might not have ideal lives, but they could make ends meet."
Professor Fuchs walked around from behind her lectern. "what do you know abou the lives of the underpriviledged?" she asked. She was practically trembling with agitation. "What do you know about the hardships and obstacles that the underclas faces?"
The other students were staring at me.
"You have a point," I said."
That was a long excerpt. Anyway, my point is that this book is a first person perspective on poverty and it is really interesting.

The Jane Austen Book Club

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452286530/ref=pd_lpo_k2a_1_txt/002-0757692-9758466?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Here is the link to Amazon's listing of 'The Jane Austen Book Club', which I just finished. If you haven't read the Austens it will just be a quick, shallow read for you. For those who have, the Austen mimicry in the book club members' storylines is there to consider.

AJ

Small Island

This is a really well written book. It is written from four different people's perspectives during WWII in England, Jamaica and India. One of my favorite passages is written from one of the Jamaican character's perspectives:
"But for my I had just one question - let me ask the Mother Country just this one simple question: how come England did not know me?...It was inconceivable taht we Jamaicans, we West Indians, we members of the British Empire would not fly to the Mother Country's defence when there was threat. But, tell me, if Jamaica was in trouble, is there any major, any general, any sergeant who would have been able to find that dear island? Give me a map, let me see if Tommy Atkins or Lady Havealot can point to Jamaica. Let us watch them turning the page round, screwing up their eyes to look, turning it over to see if perhaps the region was lost on the back, before shrugging defeat. But give me that map, blindfold me, spin me round three times and I, dizzy and dazed, would still place my finger squarely on the Mother Country."
Entertaining and a very different perspective of England.