Bluestalking

The Sunday Salon - August 27 Edition: The reading week. Bits of This and That. And Hitler.

route 66: the mother road herself

A bit of photography for you this sunny (here, at least), temperate day. I stood in the middle of the road to get this shot, in the heart of an almost completely abandoned Route 66 virtual ghost town. All the former businesses were derelict, windows broken, insides filled with debris. I'll be posting several other photos from this location throughout the week.

Have to cut this short this week. It's family birthday party day. (I know, yay.) My boys had their birthdays on July 30 and 31 (two years apart, not twins, which may actually be more remarkable) but we were on vacation then. Today's the first chance we've had to observe their joint birthdays. I still have loads to do; the house looks like Irene picked it up, tossed it around and threw it down again. We're nowhere near the coast, tucked away safely in metro Chicago, but you wouldn't know it by looking in our windows.

Hey, you aren't looking in our windows, are you? Because that's so not cool.

Reading news:

Still reading the Booker Longlist books, working on a couple reviews I'll have up on the blog and reading NetGalley eBooks on my iPhone.

I was reading Chris Bohjalian's The Night Strangers in bed last night. It has supernatural themes, which make me jumpy as a circus performer. When my husband let out a sudden SNORT in his sleep I swear I jumped a foot off the bed. My heart rate shot through the roof. It was not a fun time.

The Night Strangers

Chris Bohjalian

Crown, October 4, 2011

 

"In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. 

The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain due to double engine failure. The body count? Thirty-nine.   

What follow is a riveting ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling, award-winning novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, meticulous research, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply. The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead."

- Amazon.com

Over the course of last week I reviewed:

A Small Hotel by Robert Olen Butler

The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

The Curfew by Jesse Ball

We stopped by Catoosa, OK for a look at The Blue Whale.

And had a look at one image from an abandoned gas station along Route 66.

Next week I'll talk about a great book for writers/bloggers, another Booker Longlist read and, if I have the time, a couple long overdue eBook reviews. And, of course, more photos from sites along Route 66 from our summer vacation.

Have a good week. Stay safe if you're out East

 

 

The Doctor: Rory, take Hitler and put him in that cupboard over there. Now. Do it.

Rory: Right. Putting Hitler in the cupboard. Cupboard. Hitler. Hitler. Cupboard.

 

- Doctor Who, Episode 8, "Let's Kill Hitler"

The Sunday Salon - August 20, 2011 , or:

I'm warning you; it's long (That's what she said.)

 

Good morning, my lovelies! Err... Afternoon, actually.

 

Route 66 Museum

Here's a photo from our 2011 summer vacation, for no other reason than I haven't posted a whole lot of pictures yet. Time is the culprit. Time is my nemesis. Also, the wasting of time I could be doing something useful, due to my addiction to Angry Birds and Zombie Farmer.

I am such an iPhone whore. There's no time of day or night I'm unwilling to answer its call. The other night Zombie Farmers beeped at 1:00 a.m. to tell me one of my crops was ready to harvest. Did I turn it off and ignore it? What do you think?

But I needed tomatoes!

Know what I'm thinking? When our family plan phone contract is up next summer I may not get another iPhone. I know! Crazy, right? But I don't like this feeling of being chained to my phone, Googling every little thing I wonder about, like: who was that one actor in that one film, the one with the barking dogs? Google it! Who wrote that book I've been wanting to buy? Amazon! Buy it!

This cannot continue. All this tempting technology is teaching me the evils inherent with constant instant gratification, encouraging my ADD via dangling temptations in my face. Do I really need this? Come to think of it, does anyone?

Know how many books I have on my iPhone Kindle app? I don't want to know, so I'm not going to check and tell you. But trust me, it's obscene. I download a lot of free first chapters, to the tune of maybe 50  or so to date. Yesterday I accidentally bought a book instead of downloading the free chapter. Oopsies. Nine dollars worth of oopsies. Plus, it wasn't even one I thought I would wind up buying.

This confession is my segue back into books, the intention of the Sunday Salon. Smooth, no?

I know. No.

We're already familiar with the fact I've been reading through as many books on the Booker Longlist as possible before the September 6 Shortlist announcement (because I am insane impatient and cannot just wait for the shortlist and read those books).

So far I've completed:

Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side

Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

I'm roughly halfway through Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child and bored senseless (apologies to Emma Straub!)

I've started Patrick DeWitt's uproariously funny The Sisters Brothers, and next up plan to read Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie.

The thinking behind my choices was I needed to read the biggies (Barry, Barnes and Hollinghurst), regardless of what it took to get them, including spending the money to have them shipped here from Amazon.co.uk. Next, I'm reading the books available here in the colonies.

Once the Shortlist comes out I will compare my guess educated opinion re: which of the biggies should have, and did, make it through, as well as thoughts on which of the other, lesser known survived. At that point (bear with me; this is a highly complicated process) I will behold those books left unread from the Shortlist, determine how many I am able to lay hands on, read those, and declare my choice prior to the announcement of the winner.

Et voilà! Bob's your uncle!

So far, I say Barnes will make it through. That's all I'm willing to conjecture; there are miles to go before I sleep.

But the Booker contenders are not all I've been reading. For the classics group at the library I re-read Voltaire's Candide, discovering how irritatingly unfamiliar I am  with the philosophies Voltaire was lampooning, determining I need to read a book about him and/or the enlightenment to offset my ignorance.

So, at Half Price Books (how I love thee!) I lucked upon:

 

From Booklist

A probing and careful biographer, Davidson recognizes that the transforming event of Voltaire's life came when he was banished from France. Losing his place in a country that idolized him as a poet and dramatist awakened Voltaire to political issues transcending national boundaries. In this chronicle of Voltaire's deep involvement in a series of post-exile campaigns to reverse barbaric court rulings, Davidson limns the great writer's remarkable transformation from a literary celebrity into an international champion of human rights. That metamorphosis generated scores of spirited letters initially appealing simply for the lives and liberty--or posthumous reputations--of specific individuals but finally demanding the radical reforms needed to free judicial proceedings from ecclesiastical tyranny. Davidson piquantly details Voltaire's real and unrelenting fight against the church hierarchy but also explodes the mythical image of Voltaire as an atheist and an egalitarian revolutionary. The brilliant writer of Candide knew all too well that this is far from "the best of all possible worlds"; this valuable study shows how resolutely he labored to make it a better one. Bryce Christensen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

 

Nice!

 

I also re-read portions of Kate Christensen's The Astral, in order to write my review for BookBrowse.com (which won't be up 'til next month). On audio I'm listening to DFW's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, wanting to cry hearing his voice, yet so glad it's been preserved.

Coming up, loads and loads of reviews I'm VERY behind in writing.

And:

A work of zombie fiction for the R(eaders)A(dvisory)I(nterest)G(roup)

Zola's Germinal for the classics group at the library

Colson Whitehead's Zone One, for review

One ARC title I was excited to receive: Bogeywoman by Jaimy Gordon

Plus, NetGalley eBooks - loads of those.

As usual, there's more. Always more.

 

As always, have a lovely reading week. Please support your local library and indie booksellers!

 

Books mentioned in this post:

Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side

Julian Barnes's The Sense of an Ending

Alan Hollinghurst's The Stranger's Child

Patrick DeWitt's The Sisters Brothers

Carol Birch's Jamrach's Menagerie

Voltaire's Candide

Ian Davidson's Voltaire in Exile

Kate Christensen's The Astral

DFWallace's Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Zola's Germinal

Colson Whitehead's Zone One

Jaimy Gordon's The Bogeywoman

 

 

www.powells.com

 

The Sunday Salon - August 14, 2011: Nervous Breakdown Edition

You'll have heard by now a sharp rap, followed by a series of dull thuds. The first was my chin hitting the table. The second, my head banging the wall.

 

 

Mere minutes ago I turned the last page of Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending,' a book so gorgeous I am sitting here literally biting my tongue to keep from weeping at the sheer perfection of it. Yes, weeping.

I am not a crier. I do not cry. If I do cry something disastrous has happened, something inconceivable. Or, I've just heard about or seen animal abuse - in a movie, in real life or any way, shape or form. But the minute I read the last page of both Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side and Julian Barnes' lovely novel I found myself in the same fix. I could weep like Alice in the tunnel, until I nearly drown myself.

 

Such a visceral reaction to two novels read back to back. Either my hormones have been sucked up and spit out by a cyclone or I have discovered - upon reading my second novel of Barry's and first of Barnes' - two authors who speak to me as few other writers have, putting them in the same category as William Faulkner and Virginia Woolf. None too shabby a company.

The thing is, they're so different! Barry is poetic, Barnes sparing. Both know exactly when to twist the knife to elicit a reaction in the reader. Their timing is impeccable. And, as for their endings, It was fairly obvious where Barry was going, though no less wonderful to read because of it. As for Barnes, the reader knows something is up, but not exactly what. I guessed, but had it wrong. And I'm very glad to say that, because there's nothing more irritating than guessing an author's intention and being right, then feeling no reward from having gotten there.

Blimey. If you've been hanging about here over the past few days (and if not, WHY NOT?!) you'll know I'm dead set on reading all the Booker Longlist contenders I can. Barry was first, and knocked me off my feet. I thought to myself, "Self! Here is your winner." And he still may be. He may! But Julian Barnes... The two of them have each smacked my gob, and I am deathly afraid what I'll think of the other books.

Both deserve the award. Both have had nominations previously (Barnes 3, Barry 2). Both have resumes as long as both my arms put together. Scholars have seen fit to write works of criticism about them. Barnes' earlier works have already been archived, that's how brilliant he is. Barry has written more plays than novels. Far more. Finally, Barry is Irish and Barnes English.

And I am torn in two.

It's not that I didn't realize these two, plus Alan Hollinghurst (who won the Booker for The Line of Beauty in 2004) were the three huge names in the Booker pool. I expected all three would blow me away. I just didn't realize in advance how strong my reactions to both Barry and Barnes would be. And Hollinghurst's book is next...

 

I can see the newspaper headline now:

 

 

Send. Help.

The Sunday Salon - August 7, 2011 edition

Welcome to this week's edition of The Sunday Salon, in which I bring to you a mere fraction of what I've been reading throughout the week, because my ADD renders a full transcription a superhuman ideal to which I cannot live up.

Books finished:

A plot line centering on time travel would have had much less success with me before I became enamored with Doctor Who and his grand adventures in the TARDIS. Honestly, the absolute hotness of the present (Matt Smith) and prior (DAVID TENNANT) actors playing the lead role in the series did have a little something to do with my initial interest, but beyond that I became sucked into the world of time lords, quirky aliens and unpredictable plots. Now I'm a rabid fan, making the idea of time travel - though, in reality, negated by Stephen Hawking - irresistable.

So, in the mail comes Charles Yu's book, arriving at pretty much the height of my Who-mania. Main character Charles Yu (coincidence!) opens the book describing his job involving policing time travellers, in order to keep them from bending or breaking the rule declaring one mustn't mess with the past, or God alone knows the ripple effect. He travels around in a box sounding for all the world like the TARDIS, guided by his computer, TAMMY, and accompanied by a sort of robotic dog.

Sound familiar at all, Doctor Who fans? Me, too. A little too familiar.

The main theme is the alienation Charles suffered from his father - the ubiquitous constantly-distracted/disconnected from real life scientist - before and after his sudden, unexplained disappearance, and how this has haunted Charles all his life. The book bounces back and forth betwixt a young  Charles desperately seeking his father's attention and the adult Charles, operating the very time machines which his father's life's work involved, in the midst of searching for his father in order to find the proverbial closure.

The only time travel book I can recall reading previously is H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, an odd eyebrow scruncher/head tilter of a book, one I didn't particularly care for aside from the fact it was an early attempt at science fiction writing and interesting as such. I can't recall what led me to read it, whether it was for a book group or lark, but the impression it left me with was not positive. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe went better, but didn't replace Doctor Who in my heart. Yu's work lacked a certain something in the way of plot complexity, and general tension. It felt incomplete to me, though I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style - witty, and generally lovely. Pity, that, but can't win them all.

A much better experience came in the form of a short foray with my beloved Edith Wharton's novella Bunner Sisters, the story of two impoverished spinsters - Evelina and Ann Eliza - living modestly, operating a small sewing/millinary business in their home. The two live miserly lives, but things are satisfactory; they can meet their needs through their own work, without need of a husband to support them.

"The Bunner sisters were proud of the neatness of their shop and content with its humble prosperity. It was not what they had once imagined it would be, but though it presented but a shrunken image of their earlier ambitions it enabled them to pay their rent and keep themselves alive and out of debt; and it was long since their hopes had soared higher."

But then enters a MAN - Herman Ramy - who sells Evelina a clock she gives Ann Eliza for her birthday. When the clock proves to need repair one of the sisters takes it back to his shop. It turns out there was only a speck of dirt in the way, after removal of same the clock was in perfect order.

What starts as a simple transaction blossoms into something suggesting more when the man decides to visit the ladies again, to ensure the clock remains in working order (lame, dude). You can see this one coming: the two sisters begin spending more and more time with him, each believing his attentions are due to her. One is left giddy, and the other broken-hearted, until...

Twist! Turn! Delightful stuff.

As far as actual finished books, let's say these two make up the total list, as I need to go grocery shopping in a few minutes.

Books in Progress:

Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta. Reading this with The New Yorker book discussion group, which I didn't even know existed until last week but had to join because, hey, it's THE NEW YORKER. Roughly halfway through, reading on my iPhone Kindle app. Plot: a rather eccentric/artsy, brilliant brother and his adoring but less exceptional sister and the lives they lead, narrated by the sister. Kind of short on actual plot, come to think of it, but interestingly character-driven.

The Infinite Library by Kane X. Faucher. Shazam! No idea how I found this Kindle book, but so far I'm torn between thinking it brilliant and merely approaching/mirroring brilliance as it's heavily influenced by Borges' "The Library of Babel," and no writer can live up to THAT. A mysterious man approaches a book researcher/lecturer asking for help filling in obscure titles in his library, using less than legal means. Reeeallly interesting.

Luminarium by Alex Shakar. Good stuff! Twin men, one in a coma, one participating in a study in which the objective is something approaching becoming one with the universe, with a spiritual slant. Not very far into it, but it's great so far. Reading with The Rumpus Book Club.

Have a lovely week.

Sunday Salon - July 3, 2011 Edition

 

Alright, so I'm not the best Sunday Saloner. I'm downright crappy, when it comes down to it, and that's a shame. I should be using this time to remind myself what I'm reading as well as share that with others, necause my normal reading style involves picking up whatever's near, no matter how many books I already have going. That's my ADD at work.

And then, no matter how much I'm reading, I have to toss everything else aside when a book for review publication comes in, because some of those pay actual cash money, the kind you spend at stores. Bookstores, mainly, because you can wear the same clothes and shoes forever, right, and get invited to the homes of others for meals. So what does that leave? Books! Right-o!

 

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

I never had the slightest desire to read this novel  until the publisher sent me a 20th anniversary edition for review. My assumption, based on nothing actually, was this was a novel of the surreal/postmodern genre I've never had much luck with.  And how wrong I was.

This is my gym read, the one I prop on the elliptical machine to help the time pass. Anything that grips me while I'm working and sweating must be pretty good.

It's about the rise of the dot com bubble 1990s, when everything was good and people were starting to make money like mad. When the potential for failure seemed impossible.

The main character, Patrick Bateman, is a wealthy 20-something man who works for a major investment firm. He spends his time divided between: working out, tanning, buying $ 600 boxer shorts, eating (barely), drinking (plentifully), doing drugs (moderately), and having sex with his friends' girlfriends. He goes to work every day, though who knows what he actually does. All we hear about are lunches and dinners out, his biased opinions of everyone and everything, and how cruel he and his friends are to the homeless: pretending to hand them a dollar then snatching it away at the last minute. Happens a lot when he's out with his friends, actually.

Bateman is obsessed with what people are wearing, what gym they go to, if they're "hardbodies" or not, etc. He mentally undresses others, and by that I mean he observes the designer who made everything they're wearing from top to bottom. That gets old after a little while, hearing, "He wore a plaid jacket from Ralph Lauren, a silk tie from Polo, a shirt from..." wherever, all the way down to a man's shoes. But it certainly gets the point across. Patrick Bateman is a man obsessed with style, status and outward appearances.

He also has a fascination for true crime stories of murder, the more brutal the better. At the same time he's enjoying his success, his mind is starting to overload, his anxiety shooting through the roof. He pops valium like candy, just to get through the day. And he carries a knife in his jacket pocket. Did I mention the knife in his pocket?

A bit intriguing?

As the Doctor would say: Oh, yessssssssss!

 

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan

Fascinating stuff that makes you grateful you didn't live through this part of  history. It deserves every bit of the National Book Award and then some.

Egan takes us through the early settlement of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, the westward expansion and land grab. What begins as grazing land for animals is converted to farmland, plowing up the native grasses that had kept the dirt at bay, setting up what will turn out to be the greatest natural disaster in the history of the United States.

It's riveting and heartbreaking. It also makes the reader very angry such a thing was allowed to happen, especially after the northern parts of the Great Plains experienced the same problem and no one connected the dots, realizing the potential for disaster.

I love history, but even if the thought of the Dust Bowl bores you, I expect if you like very well written nonfiction you may enjoy it, as well. Egan will make you care.

 

I'm reading this via my iPhone's Kindle app, mostly at bedtime. And it keeps me up late every, single night.

Because I need to leave in 15 minutes, here's a really quick recap of some other things I'm reading:

Also reading:

Astral by Kate Christensen

Assistive Technologies in the Library by Barbara T. Mates

I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

Open City by Teju Cole

 

Just finished:

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Leche by R. Zamora Linmark

Among the Wonderful by Stacy Carlson

The Double Life of Alfred Buber by David Schmahmann

 

Coming up:

Candide by Voltaire (Classics Group at the library)

And oh so, so much more.

 

Oh, yesssssssssss!!!!