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.

Long Time No See

So I have finally found some time to read again. I've finished several of my final projects so things are starting to wrap up. If you want to see what I've been doing you can visit my portfolio. Not all of it works yet, mostly because I already got a job so it has not been a priority. However, most of it should work within the next month. Anyway, I should be posting more now that grad school is letting me have a little more time for other things.

New Books and the dangers of the Public Library

I received an e-mail from grandma yesterday advising me to get a book called "Castles in the Air" about a woman and her husband/boyfriend/fiance/something who move into a dilapidated castle in Northern Wales. I found it at the lib, but on the way through the stacks I spotted 2 other books on my new booklist!

So, I also picked up "Stolen Figs: And other adventures in Calabria" by Mark Rotella and "Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books" by Paul Collins.

I have high hopes for "Sixpence House" as it is about a family who move to Hay-on-Wye.

I'm almost done listening to "Don't Get Too Comfortable", which Cali recommended below. It's pretty funny. I also recommend it.

I've decided, in order to read all my books in time to get them back to the library before the late fees begin accruing, I will just have to stop unpacking and cleaning my new apartment.

I finished the "Flame Trees of Thika", but I did so under the pressure of moving and mounting library fines, so I can't really say that it was a relaxing or enjoyable process. I still recommend the book, though.

Enjoy the weekend!

d

Sad, Sad Me

This is just to apologize for not posting in a loooong time. I haven't been able to read much because I am trying to graduate on time. It really stinks too because Jeremy has been sick and so he's been reading non-stop. He's always wandering into the office saying "I just finished another book!" or "Boy was that a good one!". Hmph. So anyway, you all will have to pick up the slack for me for the next few weeks.

Max's Reccomendations

Max has apparently been reading tons of Welsh stuff and sharing with Grandma but nobody else. I haven't been able to keep up but she did e-mail me today....

"you should read some Gwyn Thomas I think; he's a comedian from the 60s, I think he's funny and he was really famous for a while so you might actually be able to find his stuff. maybe. some of these books are rather obscure so I don't know how feasible it would be for you to find them. He's funny in a dark sort of way at times but i did actually laugh out loud at some of his short stories."

So this is really from Max.

I Need More to Read!

S is for Silence

Great book, another Grafton mystery. I am listening to it right now and can hardly wait to get back to the gym to get on the eliptical and put on the headphones. So, if I want to excersize it has got to be a great read. I'm sure it is not going to expand my mind nearly as much as anything A.J. is reading, but, who wants to expand their mind when they are sweating?

Other books I'm reading include the 2nd in the Paddington Bear series. We are getting through these quickly since I turned off satilite TV during Lent. Stella has made me read so many chapters a day of Paddington, she doesn't like for us to say "Paddington Bear" only "Paddington", that my throat is sometimes scratchy. Of course he is always doing something terrible which reminds me of Stella!

You don't want to read what I'm reading

I just thought I'd say hello and thanks to Cali for setting up the blog. I just checked out three books from the law library on what law school is like, and I doubt you want to read those, although on her 'vacation' here this week, Mom managed to get through two of them. Paul, any reading recommendations for a person thinking about going into Tax Law? Please don't say the U.S. Tax Code. ;-P
I would offer my recent reads as suggestions, but I have a feeling no one will find them very interesting. I recently read a couple more Paul Theroux books - he is a long-time travel author who became famous for his books about travelling by train (in Asia and down the Americas)...he also does fiction. I am in the middle of The Black Sheep by Honore de Balzac. This is my second book of his and I am enjoying his wry commentary on the maneuvering of the French after the Revolution to advance their political/social status. I am also slowly trudging through Schindler's List, and I wonder WHY this ever became such a hit?? The story is important, of course, but the way it is written is confusing and tedious! Finally, I picked up 'Avoiding Prison and other Noble Vacation Goals' at the used bookstore the other day...this young woman has a quirky sense of humor that is getting me through the book, but her idiotic tendency to fall in love with guys in or just about to be in prison in Central American countries is kind of exasperating.
So, to conclude, you don't want to read what I'm reading.
(But I thought I would let you know, in case you wondered why I hadn't posted anything.)

Leah's Recommendation: Amelia Peabody

These are great. Turns out curse of the Pharoh isn't the first though. I started reading it and there were a lot of references to past adventures so I got suspicious. Crocodile on the Sandbank is the first although both books have been realy fun. What a great feminist heroine! Thanks Leah.