Shivers Down My Spine

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I don't always know what to do about book hype, particularly when the book being hyped is a Young Adult novel. I have nothing against Young Adult Literature, but ever since the Twilight fiasco, I have been a bit wary. Imagine my surprise, then, when I devoured Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater, in a mere day and a half. I didn't know much about the book, but when I saw it on the library's new books shelf, I thought to myself, "what the heck. I'll give it a try."

Boy, am I glad I did.

First let me just say how much I appreciate that Stiefvater's publisher a) did not give away the entire book in the blurb and b) did an amazing job on the cover art. Okay, on to the review!


I'm not going to give a plot synopsis here since I am probably the last person in the blogosphere to have read this book. The main characters are Grace and Sam, and I liked both of them almost immediately. Grace is a junior in high school, but she pretty much keeps her family together: both her parents are rather scatterbrained, so most of the care giving responsibilities fall on her. Sam had a pretty rough childhood, and his teen years are proving to be quite trying, too. I don't want to give away the twist here, but I do want to commend Stiefvater for writing two great characters who feel like real teenagers. She understands teens without condescension or cliche. It's a book that deals with lots of emotions, but these emotions never feel fake or melodramatic; they are real and genuine and, as a result, evoked some pretty real emotional responses from me.

This is a sweetly told story, and it maintains its sweetness and sass despite some not-so-nice details. I especially appreciated that Stiefvater explored and present Grace and Sam's relationship in a realistic but tasteful way. She conveyed the strong feelings that so often come when great amounts of emotions and hormones are involved, but it never got weird or icky. The ins and outs of their relationship were very well done.

Needless to say, the book delivers. It is all about longing, loss, pain, and love, and it is supernatural/fantasy writing at its best: it takes a complex human dilemma, clothes it in some rather fantastical clothing, and then lets the situation unfold in a realistic, moving way despite its fantastical elements. If anything, because it is fantasy it allows for a more honest, up-close look at and answer to how we deal with the complexities of wanting someone, loving someone, and helping another person conquer his personal demons.

I am eagerly waiting for my turn to come up on the library's hold list so I can get my hands on the next book in the series, Linger. The last book in the series will be published next summer, and I'm sure it will be hard to wait if Linger is anything like Shiver.

Excuse Me? or a Defense of Reading Fiction

My parents and I had lunch with some old friends and other people the old friends knew. We had eaten lunch, and the women had settled in for a delightful post-lunch conversational meander. The talk turned to books (four of us were teachers, so this was no surprise), and in the midst of discussions about Harry Potter (yay!), the Twilight series (blech!), and whether the standards for the Newberry had changed, one lady casually mentioned that she only allows herself one novel per year.

*Insert crickets, blank stares, and a rather uncomfortable silence where the rest of us looked at each other awkwardly, not quite sure how to respond*

This lady then went on to explain that she had so much to read with her cookbooks and children's school books (she homeschools them) that she just couldn't justify allowing herself to read more than one novel a year.

I have to admit that I was more than a little put off by her rather nonchalant statement. I can understand people who don't like or want to read (crazy people that they are) not wanting to read much in a year, but how is it possible that someone who suppposedly enjoys reading, who is trying to instill in her children the importance of words and reading, deprives herself of so much great material? This lady is clearly reading other things, but it irked me that she made this statement as an obvious testament to how pious and worthy she was because she wasn't reading the drivel and slop that the rest of us were because she didn't read multiple novels each year.

And this, really, is the heart of the issue: people still see reading fiction as largely a waste of time. I know there are people who prefer non-fiction, which is fine. There is a lot to be said for personal taste. I also know that people who are not readers cannot quite grasp the sometimes obsessive nature of a booklover's desire to read. But what I want to know is how a responsible, educated person can assert that all fiction, across the board, is frivolous and meant to be doled out in tiny bits like too-rich candy to children who might get sick if they eat too much of it. Is there frivolous, fluffy fiction? Certainly; the same, however, can be said for non-fiction.

What I really wanted to say in response to this woman's statement (but didn't because I was too dumbstruck) is that fiction has value. It's an argument that's been debated since the beginning of literature: what makes literature valid and valued? Is it only worthwhile if it instructs (which many associate with non-fiction)? Is it valuable if it only entertains? I would assert that the best literature (fiction, poetry, non-fiction, you name it) does both, but it is not necessary to feel actively instructed to take something valuable from a work of fiction. Sometimes it is enought to recognize yourself, your situation, or your feelings in a work. Even better if you learn something because of it.

I have gained so much from the fiction that I have read throughout my life. My appreciation of and love for music and beautiful things have been heightened by works like Bel Canto and the poetry of Liesl Muller. I have understood sacrifice and true love (romantic and non) more deeply and more truly because of Our Mutual Friend, Lord of the Rings, Little Dorrit, and even something as silly as Belong to Me. I have seen great moral lessons played out in To Kill a Mockingbird, Tale of Two Cities, and Things Fall Apart. I can hardly make a respectable dent in all the historical fiction I have read that not only taught me about the time and place but also brought significant history to life (Outlander, the Sunne and the Splendor, Macbeth, Gaskell's North and South, all of Dickens' works, The Bronze Arrow, the Little House on the Prairie books, Maude Hart Lovelace's Betsy, Tacy, and Tib books, and so many more).

I can honestly assert that my life would not have been the same if I had not read the books that I read, and most of those books have been fiction. Regarding all fiction as suspect is as problematic as assuming that every work in a certaing genre is valuable because it is that genre. It smacks of smugness and ignorance, and I don't like it.

How Do We Go On? Living in the Face of Suffering

I recently finished two extremely different books that both dealt with the issue of how we as individuals and as a nation can continue living a supposedly normal and disinterested existence when we know what other people are experiencing around the world.

The Postmistress, by Sarah Blake, is a novel that is set in 1940 and 1941; the novel depicts the stories of the people living in a tiny coastal town in Massachustes (literally the last town in America before hitting the Atlantic Ocean), specifically the postmaster, Iris, the town mechanic, Harry, and the new doctor, Will, and his new wife, Emma. The novel also follows Frankie Bard, a woman reporter covering the Blitz in London and then trying to discover what the Nazis are really doing to all the Jews the are relocating.

The other book is The Bread of Angels, by Stephanie Saldana. In this memoir, Saldana recounts the year she spent in Syria (2004-2005); Saldana discusses the people she met, the struggles (emotional, spiritual, and physical) she encountered, and the most definitely unorthodox decisions that she made as a result of her time spent in Syria.

Both of these books were very fast reads for me, but I found The Bread of Angels to be a much more authentic answer to the question of how to continue living in the face of suffering. Saldana confronted the repercussions of war, poverty, and religious differences with honesty and authenticity; I never felt like she was hiding her pain or her indecision regarding suffering from the reader. In fact, I think it was Saldana's raw pain, doubt, fear, and insecurity that made this such a compulsive read for me. I didn't necessarily agree with all of Saldana's thoughts, resolutions, and answers, but I still found the book to be an honest portrait of a woman striving to define and live by what was important and mattered most to her.

Sarah Blake, on the other hand, ruined the good work that she did in her novel by feeling the need to explain that she was dealing with how people continued living, unchanged, in the face of suffering. I was interested to learn what inspired Blake to write her novel, but I felt a bit patronized by her explanation of why she discussed the Blitz and Frankie Bard's journey through Nazi-occupied Europe. Coincidentally, it was Frankie Bard's train journey, spent recording the stories of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi regime, that resonated most deeply for me; it was the least forced and most authentic part of Blake's story, and it was the part of the novel that evoked the deepest, truest emotions in me. It clearly presented the juxtaposition that Blake sought and was powerful enough to make Blake's explanation unnecessary. By contrast, the rest of the novel seemed to be working too hard to prove a point (a point that didn't necessarily match her content) without just letting the story be told.

Interestingly, The Postmistress has stayed with me, largely because of how it ended. I realize that part of the reason that I like Victorian literature so much is that there is always a neatly wrapped-up ending, and oftentimes those endings are happy. This was not the case with The Postmistress. I didn't feel as though the ending fit the book; it seemed as though Blake wanted to infuse as much suffering as possible into her novel, but, ironically, she never attempted to make sense of that suffering. Saldana, however, presented just as much pain and suffering, but all that pain and suffering (even though much of it was senseless and unnecessary) became a necessary piece of how her story was told.

Happy Birthday, TKAM!

I LOVE To Kill a Mockingbird. It is possibly my favorite book, and all my fellow bookies out there KNOW how hard it is to land on an unconditional favorite!

To honor the fact that this wonderful, life-changing book has been delighting us for fifty years (and may it have many, many more), I am thinking about dedicating some yet to be determined amount of time on my blog to To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm thinking favorite scenes, favorite quotes, best themes, funniest teaching stories, and much, much more. Would anyone like to do this with me? Read it? Discuss it? Contribute quotes, etc.? If so, please let me know!

P.S. I just found out that my dad (my own father!) has not read To Kill a Mockingbird. This might be grounds for disowning him, especially since he didn't seem all that interested in rectifying the situation.

P.P.S. I hope that this continues to be true:

I'm teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

UPDATE: I have found a lovely blogger who has already set-up a little schedule to honor To Kill a Mockingbird on her blog, so I will be working within the framework on Capricious Reader's blog. Do check it out!

Confessions of a Delinquent Blogger

A recent conversation I had with my mother:

What are you doing?

I'm working on my little blog, Mom

I didn't know you had a blog...do you have a following?

Probably not, since I started the blog in February and then didn't post for two of the four months of the blog's existence.

Oh...

Apologies to you, dear reader, if you have felt any of the confusion my mother experienced. I could quote all kinds of excuses (and oh, they are many and reasonable), but really I just didn't make time to blog. Yes, there were papers to grade and musicals to accompany for and exams to write and apartments to pack, but I also found time to read the entire backlog of the love story between Ree and her Marlboro Man (at the fabulous Pioneer Woman, but be warned: it is VERY addicting!) and watch almost the entire first season of Lost. Again, my brain was tired, my sanity was shot, and my body was beyond over getting up at 6 a.m., but I could have prioritized.

Let's all just agree that this was an unofficial blogging break, and I promise to try to do better. I have had some major life changes that will probably mean more time (at least for right now) to read and blog: I have left the South and returned to the Midwest. I am currently living with the parents (and the brother and the sister and the two crazy dogs) while I try to find a teaching job in a more severe allergy-friendly environment!

I will wrap this up by giving a shout-out to two books I enjoyed recently: I loved The Last Summer (of You and Me)*, by Ann Brashares, when I read it two years ago, so I was very excited to learn that she had a new book coming out in June. I really enjoyed My Name is Memory *(and what a great title!) until the end. Then even the end was redeemed when I learned that My Name is Memory *is the first installment of a trilogy! Rock on, Ann Brashares!

*Disclaimer: While these books all deal with teen/young adult angst, they are by no means typical. If you don't like uncomfortable, unconventional, or sad situations, these books are probably not for you.

The Fairy Tale Post, or I Assure You I am Alive

According to T.S. Eliot, "April is the cruelest month," and in many ways April was a very cruel month to me! April was busy, busy, busy, mostly because I was accompanying for the school's production of State Fair. It was loads of fun to get back to my musical theater roots, but the sleep deprivation definitely took its toll. April started strong for me, but then I floundered: I have put down at least four books that just haven't managed to keep my interest (ironically, all the audio books I listened to in April were wonderful, so maybe I was just too tired to physically read?).

I did, however, manage to read three fairy tale-esque books, so I figured I would talk about all three in one post since I still need to fulfill my fairy tale requirement for the Once Upon a Time Challenge. Without further ado, I give you three petite reviews!

The Girl with Glass Feet, by Ali Shaw
I was probably the last person with a book blog to read this book, but it was well worth the wait! This novel is a darker sort of fairy tale (think Brothers Grimm) but is no less enchanting for its dark, unflinching look at the reality of life. I won't summarize the plot here because I want to focus on the characters. I found Midas to be one of the most complete, cohesive characters I have read in a long time. From the opening passage that tells us that Midas is only comfortable looking at things through the lense of his camera, we know that Midas will face his fair share of obstacles and struggles. Midas is awkward, isolated, introverted, and "rigid in every way;" he knows very little about interacting with people in general. All this changes when he meets Ida (the fact that her name is part of his is probably not coincidence). Ida is struggling with her own bizarre problems, and over the course of the novel, these two characters must confront painful things about themselves, their pasts, and each other. In many ways, both are looking for completion and redemption, and they both look to each other in order to find them. This novel does not give easy answers, and does have its flaws (the winged bulls seemed completely random and unnecessary), but the novel ends as it should and presents itself as a very modern fairy tale. Here are some favorite quotes:

The snow was as stiff as the rest of St. Hauda's Land. The awkward bending of branches in the wind, the brittle leaves that broke like ancient parchments. Even a falcon she had watched fly without grace, with mechanical beats of its wings. As if that was the way of these islands, to seize things up, to weather away their vitality.

She found time for inhibited men, and in doing so found excuses for them. There must be some excuse for the way his father left an inheritance of inhibitions for his son.

This was my favorite of the fairy tale books that I read, and I am anxiously waiting for this to come out in paperback so I can buy it!

Sing Me To Sleep, by Angela Morrison
This Young Adult novel was another attempt to add to my summer reading list. It didn't make the cut for the list, but it had some very unique things going for it. It's not the best thing I ever read, but I appreciated how well the author captured a teenage girl's mindset, worries, and thought process. The story is a twist on Beauty and the Beast. Beth, the main character, is a tall, unattractive girl who is teased mercilessly; her classmates find her so unattractive that they call her the Beast. She has one friend, Scott, who she is becoming increasingly aware of as a boy and potential love interest. The only thing that Beth feels she has going for her in life is her singing. Beth has a beautiful voice and is a member of a competitive youth choir. When her choir travels to Switzerland for a competition, she meets Derek. As Beth and Derek attempt to build a relationship, odd things have Beth confused, and the answers to her questions are most definitely not happy. This book does not have a fairy tale ending, but was a pleasing distration from the realities of school and grading.

Curse Dark as Gold
This is a Young Adult retelling of Rumplestilskin (spelling is probably incorrect...sorry, it's a very long German name to spell from memory!). I've always loved retellings of fairy tales; I think I read every Donna Jo Napoli book I could get my hands on in high school! This book was a bit on the creepy side for me (I'm a major wimp when it comes to anything scary), but I really enjoyed the explanations that the author gave for why Rumplestilskin, known as Jack Spinner in the novel, wanted the main character's baby. The writing was much stronger in this novel than in Sing Me to Sleep, which was perhaps due to the fact that Sing Me to Sleep was Angela Morrison's first novel while Curse Dark As Gold was not Elizabeth Bunce's first.

All in all, Girl with Glass Feet was my favorite. Here's to being back in the world of blogging!

Apologies

Just wanted to post a quick assurance that I AM still alive. I have been running non-stop since my last post, but things have finally slowed down! A post is coming soon about the fairy tale reading I have been doing, so be on the look-out for that!

11 regular days of school left before exams...I will make it...somehow...I think...

March Madness

Much as I love to read, I often struggle to find the kind of time (i.e. hours and hours upon end) that I would like to have to spend reading. As an English teacher, reading is a large part of my job, and I spend lots of time reading student essays, test questions, and journals. Most of the time, this reading cannot compare to the reading that I would rather be doing. I do read every night before I go to sleep, and I find myself reading during at least one meal each day; I get snippets and tastes, but extended periods of reading times are generally confined to weekends and breaks from school. I become a reading monster during these precious hours of extra reading time, and so it is pretty easy to tell what time of the year it was on my list of books read!

As I've already mentioned, January and February were pretty dismal reading months for me. I got sick several times, I was slogging my way through East of Eden, and I was behind on my grading before the quarter even began (those of you who teach English know how this is possible; those of you who don't teach English should be thankful for your blissful ignorance). I usually have no trouble reading multiple books at once (a phenomenon that continues to stun and amaze my roommate, a strictly one-book-at-a-time reader), but I knew if I gave in and read something other than East of Eden, I would never go back and finish East of Eden. And I WANTED to finish East of Eden (that, Kari, is dedication!).

Thus it was that I was pleasantly surprised to find myself at the end of March with a quite respectable number of books under my belt. This is the first time I have been specific about the month in which I completed a book, and I am proud to say that I finished more than triple the number of books in March than I did in either January or February.

I may not know the first thing about college basketball (ask my friends; they will confirm this fact), but I got lots of reading done! Who needs basketball when you can read a book about a mysterious glass disease, a cursed girl who must complete three crazy tasks, and the backstory of the mysterious Weird Sisters. Here is the list of books I read in March:

Small Island
Lady Macbeth's Daughter
The Eyre Affair (audio)
A Homemade Life
Becoming Jane Eyre
Impossible
Firefly Lane (audio)
The Girl With the Glass Feet

My top three of the month were A Homemade Life, The Girl With the Glass Feet, and Impossible.

24 Hour Read-a-Thon: "Don't Stop Believin'"

It's Hour 15 of the Read-a-Thon, and my reading has finally kicked into high gear! I tossed The Everafter aside after only about 20 pages because it wasn't holding my interest. I have moved on to Lunch in Paris; I am enjoying it, but I keep comparing it to A Homemade Life (you can read my review if you need a break from the books), and it doesn't hold up too well in the comparison...I'm trying to stay strong, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to succumb to the siren call of Gardens of Water on my i-pod and then drift into blissful sleep.

24 Hour Read-a-Thon: Switching Gears

Well, I finally get to hunker down and read, read, read! Shades of Grey wasn't really doing it for me, so I'm going to switch gears a bit. I'm planning on reading as late as I possibly can tonight (I'm hoping until midnight, but we'll see if it happens as my body firmly believes that 10 p.m. is bedtime!). I'm going to answer the survey and then hit the books!

1. What are you reading right now? I just started The Everafter, which I'm going to alternate with Lunch in Paris (if The Everafter is too scary, I'll change accordingly!). I will also continue listening to Gardens of Water (it is amazing!).
2. How many books have you read so far? 1 (Major Pettigrew's Last Stand)
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? Probably Lunch in Paris, Love and Summer, or My Life in France.
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Well, I didn't free up my whole day (or even most of it), so no. :)
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Again, see the above answer.
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How much I want to be reading instead of doing what I have to do! Oh, and it's been really nice visiting new blogs.
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope!
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I would definitely plan a little better so I could actually read for most of the time.
9. Are you getting tired yet? Yes, but that's probably because I'm an English teacher and the kiddos are wearing me out! ;)
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Keep it up! It's been awesome!

24 Hour Read-a-Thon: Hour 8

Books currently reading: Gardens of Water, Shades of Grey
Books finished: Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Times spent reading: 2 1/2 hours (*hangs head in shame*)

Book club was FANTASTIC (we call ourselves the Jane Austen Book Club because the first book we read together was Northanger Abby), and I am excited to plow through the school things I need to get done (planning, grading outlines, brushing up on Midsummer Night's Dream) so I can spend the majority of my evening reading. I might not get many books finished, but I am thankful that this read-a-thon is inspiring me to read more than I usually would on a Saturday.

24 Hour Read-a-Thon: And So It Begins

I am very excited to be participating in the read-a-thon for the very first time! I will not, sadly, be able to read all or even most of the day, but I am going to try to do as many bookish things as possible if I can't actually be reading. I also have to do my taxes (ugh), but I am choosing instead to focus on my international bookclub (we meet via Skype) and a trip to McKay's (a fabulous used bookstore) with my roommate to try to help her get over her fear of their organizational (or lack thereof) system.

This is how I started my morning:

Here is my list of potential books for today:
>

And now I'm off to chat about East of Eden and Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (you should go out and read it RIGHT NOW!!!)

"Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme"

I read Impossible, by Nancy Werlin*, as my folk tale selection for Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge. I had originally picked it up to see if it was a book I could include on my students' summer reading list, but due to Lucy's unfortunate prom night, I can't put it on the official list. I can, however, review it here.

This novel was inspired by and based upon the "Elfin Knight" version of the ballad "Scarborough Fair" (note: this is not the same version that Simon & Garfunkel sing, but their version will work as a reference point). We are introduced to Lucy Scarborough, a girl who is loved by her foster parents and perfectly willing to let the story of her mother's madness go uninvestigated. In fact, the only interactions Lucy has with her biological mother are rather disturbing: Miranda, Lucy's mother, finds her sporadically, sings her personal version of "Scarborough Fair," and tries to persuade her (sometimes rather violently) of the importance of the ballad's message. These encounters affect Lucy mostly through the potential for embarassment for herself and the pain they cause her foster mother, Soledad.

All this changes after Lucy's prom night because Lucy was raped. Despite precautions, Lucy is pregnant and faced with a completely different life than the one she had planned. Little does she know that her life will change in more than one way because of this pregnancy: Lucy's attacker was not, as everyone assumes, her prom date, Grey, but the sinister, more-than-slightly icky Padraig Seeley, and with Lucy's pregnancy, a family curse is set into motion:

From the sting of my curse she can never be free
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Unless she unravels my riddlings three
She will be a true love of mine

The rest of the novel centers on Lucy, her parents, and Zach, a good friend, trying to find a way to perform these tasks and stave off the madness that threatens Lucy.

I won't say much more about the plot because I don't want to ruin the suspense or surprise that builds throughout the rest of the novel. Werlin does an excellent job of conveying a sense of forboding as Lucy's pregnancy progresses; we feel the urgency of Lucy completing the tasks just as Lucy and her family do. Werlin builds this sense of forboding and tension especially well as Lucy approaches and performs the third task. In terms of writing and storytelling ability, this part of the book is the best. It is also in this part of the book that the folk tale/fairytale aspects of the story become most prominent. I was reminded of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight many times during my reading, and the similarities become most apparent and meaningful during the performing of the third task.

Perhaps the greatest strenght of this book is that it will appeal to a wide range of YA readers: it has a smattering of everything (suspense, horror, romance, fantasy), and Werlin moves the action of the story in such a way that the reader is hooked early and wants to keep reading. The characters are not the deepest or most fully developed, but the strength and beauty of many passages more than make up for this. This is not a pat, formula novel, and the many unexpected developments kept the story fresh.

*I really love this cover; it is so evocative of the sense of the novel.

Straight From the Heart = Straight From the Kitchen

I do not love to cook. And really, I don't cook that often. I find it to be too much of a hassle just cooking for myself; there is very little incentive for me to spend more time preparing and cleaning up than enjoying the product, so I tend to eat a lot of cereal, toast, quesadillas, and turkey sandwiches.

A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen, by Molly Wizenberg, made me want to love to cook. Heck, it made me want to cook period! As already mentioned, I stumbled across this book on Roses Over a Cottage Door, and I am so glad that I did!

A Homemade Life is the story of Molly Wizenberg's cooking and eating life. The two are very intertwined since her parents were great cooks; Wizenberg grew up in the kitchen, and the kitchen is where she firmly remains today. This is a very poignant, fresh book, and it will pull you in as soon as you start. I loved Wizenberg's honesty about everything from foods she hated as a child to how she coped with her father's death to the things her husband does that drive her crazy. I felt like I was listening to an old friend as I read this book, and I even found some recipes to try. This book was so wonderful that it might actually get me in the kitchen!

On a final note, be sure that you know exactly where you are in your reading of this book. A Homemade Life is a book that you can easily dip in and out of, but as my roommate found out, you might skip crucial parts of the story if you only have a general idea of where you are in the book!

I Want to be Jane Eyre When I Grow Up

He wakes to the scratching of a pencil against a page: a noise out of the darkness. He lies quite still on his back, reaching out for sound. His ears have become wings, straining, stretching, carrying him away. The world comes to him only through sound, and there is precious little of that.

So begins Becoming Jane Eyre, by Sheila Kohler. The novel opens soon after Charlotte Bronte's father's eye surgery; they are far away from home and all that is familiar. Charlotte is nursing her father, and her father is acknowledging her in a way he never had before. According to Sheila Kohler, it was during this convalescence that Charlotte Bronte started writing Jane Eyre.

I knew I wanted to read this book from the first time that I saw it in Borders. I have loved Jane Eyre since I first read it at sixteen, and I was intrigued by the premise of the novel. Essentially, Kohler intertwines Charlotte's struggles and desires with those of Jane; the result is an interesting and moving acknowledgment of Jane Eyre's power. Kohler also discusses Charlotte's relationship with her sisters, and it was easy to feel along with her as whe watched Branwell's demise, attempted to cajole Emily and Anne into publication, wrestled with her jealousy over the publication of her sisters' novels before her own was published, and mourned her two dear sisters' deaths.

I did not love this book, but I did appreciate it. Becoming Jane Eyre made me want to delve into Jane Eyre; it also made me want to pull out my copy of Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte. I was pleasantly surprised by how normal Emily Bronte was (my view of her is admittedly skewed by my negative reactions to Wuthering Heights), and I was greatly intriuged By Anne Bronte.

Sheila Kohler's writing was beautiful and visceral. She presented Charlotte Bronte as a real woman with real (pressing problems). She did not deify Bronte, but neither did she try to explain Bronte. She presented Charlotte; she did not pyschoanalyze her (again, this is another reaction to two novels involving Chrales Dickens that I ultimately could not bring myself to finish because I didn't want my view of Dickens ruined).

Bottom line: I am glad I read this book because it brought back many of the feelings I had while reading Jane Eyre for the first time. It also made me want to read the other Bronte novels (Villette, Agnes Grey, and Tenant of Wildfell Hall in particular).

Once Upon a Time Challenge: Post the First

Being the slightly obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I set out to find a good literary definition of folklore. After accomplishing this first task, I then set out to find a definitive list of suggestions of books that would be considered folklore/folktales. Sadly, such a list does not exist (at least not that I could find).

Based on my understanding that folklore has to do with the lives of people, tends to present some sort of explanation or truth, and, unlike myths, explains something without having a religous message, I've decided that Impossible, by Nancy Werlin, fits the bill. Inspired by the ballad "Scarborough Fair", it is the story of a girl who has to figure out a way to escape the family curse: she must perform three impossible tasks (hence the title) or be cursed with madness when her first child is born. Probably not strictly folklore, but it's close enough for me and my loose grasp of what could be considered folklore.

I tend to be much more familiar with the other three categories (fantasy, fairy tale, and myth) in this challenge. Out of the three, I've read the most in the fantasy genre, and most fantasy reading that I do tends to lead to more and more (I sort of go on fantasy kicks and then will leave the genre for quite a while), so do suggest any other good novels that you would consider folklore (note: I'm not particularly interested in reading a collection of folktales from any given culture; I would prefer to read a novel or interpretation of traditional folklore).

She's Ba-ack, or Reading Lately, or How I Joined Two Challenges

Hello, folks! First let me apologize for my absence. The end of the quarter really snuck up on me, and using every spare moment for grading and recording grades is NOT conducive to book blogging! This past week has also been crazy, but I have firmly resolved to do better, and I know that the nearness of Spring Break (please hurry. PLEASE!) bodes well for putting me back on the right blogging track.

I helped chaperone some of our students at a writing conference today, and there were some excellent sessions just for teachers. We actually got to do some writing ourselves, so I was inspired to continue writing and decided that updating my blog needed to be my first writing priority! This will probably end up being one of those random posts, so feel free to skim for the interesting bits and skip the ones that don't grab your attention!

First of all, I have decided that I cannot do justice to a review of East of Eden. I am not just trying to get out of a writing a review; I truly think that I will need to read the novel again before I can formulate a coherent, truthful response to the novel. I will reread it eventually, but I just can't handle reading it again so soon. I think I read it over too long a period of time, so I will be sure to make my second reading of East of Eden much more condensed!

Since last blogging, I have finished Andrea Levy's Small Island and have discussed it with my book club. Um...I had very mixed feeling about this book. I picked it up because Masterpiece is showing an adaptation at the end of April; I didn't know anything about it beyond the fact that it was about a Jamaican couple that immigrates to London right after World War II. I was expecting to sympathize with Hortense, I was expecting Gilbert to be a traditional sort of hero, and I was expecting a depiction of racism and bigotry similar to the depiction of those same things in the United States during the same time.

Very few of these expectations were met. Small Island was not the book I expected, but in many ways it was better. My favorite character was Gilbert, a sensitive, kind man whose experiences fighting for the British during World War II unexpectedly, and tragically, broaden his horizons to the point where Jamaica feels more like a prison than a home when he returns after the war. All of the characters are very real, and Levy managed to evoke many complex emotions in me and in my friends who read the book.

Despite all this, however, Small Island was not a great book. It had its brilliant moments, but there were too many things left unresolved. I don't know that I will read anything else by Levy, but I am glad that I experienced a part of history that I wouldn't have if I hadn't read the book.

Let me move on before this post turns into a full-fledged review of Small Island! In other bookish news, I am being forced to endure Firefly Lane, by Kristen Hannah, because it is the next bookclub pick. I picked up The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simons, because I hadn't read much fiction that was set in Russia at the beginning of World War II (if you're wondering, World War II is, and always has been, one of my favorite historical periods). It's not the greatest thing that I've ever read, but I was really enjoying it until the two main characters FINALLY achieved the one thing they had been working for. And then things went downhill. Fast. Since the book was overdue at the library and I didn't have a strong desire to find out what happens to the two main characters, I returned it this morning and moved on to A Homemade Life, by Molly Wizenberg.

I found out about A Homemade Life over at Roses over a Cottage Door and knew I needed to read it. I'm sort of a softy when it comes to memoirs, and this one has not disappointed! It is the story of the author's cooking and eating life, and I have really enjoyed it. I've also found some recipes that I absolutely must try!

Last, but not least, I have decided to join two more challenges (these will probably be my last!): I am going to join Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge and Trish's Non-Fiction Five Challenge. I'm going for Quest the Third because I too love Midsummer Night's Dream. The only book I've decided on so far for either challenge is re-reading (if it's allowed!) Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis.

Anyone have any suggestions for either challenge? Please share them!

Defenseless

No one should be surprised that I absolutely couldn't resist doing this meme as soon as I found it. Gina over at Dickensblog tweaked it from another blog (and her site is great, so you should go visit!). Yet more evidence that my love for Charles Dickens borders on the obsessive...

Warning: my answers do contain some spoilers. Read at your own risk!

1.Which Dickens character are you secretly in love with? Arthur Clennam, hands down.
2.Which Dickens character would you most like to be? Oooo, this one is hard. I'll go with Amy Dorritt (yes, it is because she gets to marry Arthur Clennam, and she is just delightful!).
3.Which Dickens character do you think most resembles you? Um...I relate a lot to David Copperfield's love of books, and I love his description of how reading sort of saved him from his stepfather.
4.Which Dickens book have you read the most times? I'm still working my way through reading all of them, but I have read Our Mutual Friend and A Tale of Two Cities twice.
5.How old were you when you read your first Dickens book? Does a Mickey Christmas Carol count? I was in seventh grade when I read A Christmas Carol.
6.What is the worst Dickens book you've read? I don't really think there can BE a bad Dickens book, but I reacted badly to both A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist (fear not! I will reread them eventually!) before A Tale of Two Cities opened my eyes to the perfection that is Dickens.
7.What is the best Dickens book you've read? Currently, Our Mutual Friend and Little Dorrit are duking it out for this honor (Little Dorrit is winning).
8.What Dickens book would you most like to see made into a new movie and/or miniseries? Hmmm....I like the old version of Our Mutual Friend, but I would love to see it updated. A Tale of Two Cities could stand to overcome the bad hair of the most recent version.
9.What Dickens book would you least like to see made into a new movie and/or miniseries? Uh...again, probably all of Dickens' work should be made into movies, but I would probably have to say the Mystery of Edwin Drood.
10.What is the most difficult Dickens book you've read? Bleak House. I've started it at least three times, but I always get distracted (it could also have something to do with the fact that I know that Richard is going to die and it is going to be awful...)
11.What is your desert island Dickens book? Ooooo....this is so hard! I know, I'll cheat! I would like an omnibus edition that had Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, and some of Dickens' essays (which are HILARIOUS!).

TGIT (Thank Goodness It's Thursday)!

I have been confused about what day it is all week. I think being under the weather and fairly fuzzy-headed is to blame, but I got pretty excited when I realized that it was Thursday because that meant I could do my second Booking Through Thursday! (It's okay...you can laugh...but it's the small things that count, right?)

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

Ah, grammar. Everyone's favorite, right? Okay, so maybe not so much! To answer the first question, yes, I do have grammar books. Many of them, in fact (and yes, I know that this is a fragment, so don't freak out! As I tell my students, if you know how NOT to write run-ons and fragments, then--and only then--can you use them for effect!). I AM an English teacher, after all, and it wouldn't look too good if I didn't have some writing handbooks, style guides, and grammar books. The students even get their very own grammar handbook to use and love throughout the school year (*snort*).

I have not read all of the grammar-related books that I own, but I find them to be more intended as reference books rather than books to be read from cover to cover. I do own Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, by Lynne Truss, but I haven't read all of it; I also appreciate Strunk and White's handbook, but, again, I haven't read it in its entirety. I also have numerous books from my college days that were helpful but referenced more than read. And who can forget that Holy Grail of Works Cited, the MLA Handbook?

Disclaimer: Remember that I'm an English teacher as you read this last bit!

What is my take on grammar? GRAMMAR IS IMPORTANT!!!!!! I firmly believe that proper grammar and good writing are extremely necessary in order to communicate effectively, and that is ALWAYS how I present grammar to my students: if you want people to understand you clearly, you need to know how to write/speak using proper grammar. Proper grammar = effective communication. Now, with that being said, I would also like to state that I do not think that standard grammar is some sacred untouchable that is above the daily usage of English speakers. Grammar should be largely defined by how it helps us communicate, and, clearly, the means we use to communicate are changing, so the grammar will (and probably should) change to accomadate. What does this mean for us as writers?

Spelling always counts. Spelling was standardized back in the day for a reason, so use correct spelling.

Commas are your friend; they are not the enemy. However, if you are unsure of how to use commas, do not, I repeat DO NOT, read Charles Dickens. The man knew how to use the British, Victorian species of comma, but the rules have changed!

Whether people admit it or not, bad grammar and bad editing DO affect opinions. Proofread your resume, or those errant commas COULD keep you from getting that job (it you don't know how to use a comma, why would anyone trust you with inspecting a nuclear power plant?).

This is my current pet peeve that makes me hit the ceiling when I read it in a student's paper: although IS NOT INTERCHANGEABLE with however!!

My perspective may be a bit skewed because I teach high school English, but I tend to fixate on proper punctuation. Proper punctuation seems fairly obvious to me, but that could be because I read so much as a child (and I read so many good writers) that I just sort of soaked in the good grammar along with the great stories and wonderful characters. I never really understood the rules until I started teaching (I would slide by with my ability to identify something as correct even though I didn't know WHY it was correct). Proper punctuation is deeply rooted in understanding how English functions, and this proves difficult (sometimes more for native speakers than non-native speakers) more often than not.

I will leave you with this: I think that grammar should be taught in the context of literature and writing. Too often teaching grammar has meant separating understanding of how language works from understanding what language says. I never (and will never) teach sentence diagramming, for instance, because sentence diagramming breaks down the sentence so much that it is no longer a sentence (but that's another soap box for another day!). Grammar is not essential unto itself; it is essential in the context of understanding and communicating.

A Shout-Out!

A BIG thanks to Eva at astripedarmchair.wordpress.com for the assistance with adding buttons to my blog. You're the best, Eva! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Do visit her blog!