There was no way I could resist the title Walking in Circles before Lying Down I couldn't resist the cover art, either. I'd never heard of Merrill Markoe before--I never fail to amaze the Boyfriend with my obtuseness! Apparently, she is "a legendary comedy writer" (O: The Oprah Magazine) In any case, this was a fairly amusing chick lit romp. I wish it had concentrated more on Chuck, the main dog. Instead, the story is mainly about Chuck's owner, Dawn.
Dawn is from an jaw-droppingly dysfunctional family, and has two divorces to her credit. I still find it amazing how negatively authors and their characters tend to view divorce--it is still the best thing I ever did. Moving right along, Dawn gets dropped by her current beau, Paxton. She turns to Chuck for comfort, and Chuck starts talking to her. Dawn can also hear the dogs at the doggie day care where she works, which leads to a variety of complications. Dawn's problems and various plot thickeners made me want to walk in a few circles and go to sleep. It's all a little too over the top--Dawn's sister is a life coach whose recent amours include two men who have murdered their wives. But Chuck's voice and views kept me going. All in all, an ok read, if not riotous. I am contemplating reading another book by Markoe, The Psycho Ex Game. Do I get something if I win? Oh right, the very happy divorce!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Spell bound
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen certainly has its charms (sorry :*) The Waverlys have always been an unusual family, with peculiar gifts and a peculiar garden. Though they have lived in Bascomb, North Carolina for generations, they are outsiders.
Claire Waverly has stayed at home, quietly running a successful catering business. Her recipes incorporate flowers, and have some strange properties. Their mother abandoned Claire and her sister Sydney to the care of their grandmother. Sydney ran off when she turned eighteen, and Grandmother has died, so Claire is alone in the old family home.
A new neighbor has moved in, and ignores Claire's protective borders. He is an attractive if abstracted artist, and quickly becomes fascinated with Claire. Then Sidney returns home with her young daughter, Bay. Sidney has run away from her abusive husband, but she won't tell Claire where she's been, or anything else. Both sisters need to confront the past and the future, and the Waverly magic. The romantic subplots are a bit forced. Cousin Evanelle Waverly and her gift for giving the exactly correct gift at the time it will be needed makes up for it. It's a sweet, quaint, comfortable if not quite magical read. This was another Advance Reading Copy--thank you Random House.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick held me spellbound completely. One of my customers recommended it to me, and I trusted her without even asking questions. It is wonderful.
I was rather surprised the book weighed in at 534 pages, or roughly 2.5 lbs. On the long side for juvenile fiction, if not quite Harry Potter (is the new book classified teen again?). On page 511, Hugo says he will create an automaton that can "produce one hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and can write...an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred fifty-nine words. These words." I'm not sure if that is a precise inventory of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It is mainly images--black and white--Hugo, clocks, clockworks, the station, the people he meets. It is cinematic in feel, which is quite fitting, though I don't want to give anything away... There are actual archival images interspersed with the fine, crosshatched, atmospheric closeups and pans.
The orphaned Hugo has been living with his uncle, who is the clock-keeper of a large Paris train station in the 1920s. However, the uncle has disappeared. Hugo has continued to tend the clocks, stealing food from the businesses in the station, since he doesn't know how to cash his uncle's paychecks, which continue to arrive. Hugo is fascinated by some mysterious drawings his father made in a notebook. The drawings show an elaborate machine, an automaton, like an early robot. Hugo believes if he can repair the broken automaton, it will communicate with his father. Hugo is caught stealing from a toyshop in the station. He makes friends with Isabelle, the goddaughter of the man who owns the toyshop, and they set out to solve the mystery of the notebook and the automaton. Its a wonderful escape to a Paris of magic and wonder.
Claire Waverly has stayed at home, quietly running a successful catering business. Her recipes incorporate flowers, and have some strange properties. Their mother abandoned Claire and her sister Sydney to the care of their grandmother. Sydney ran off when she turned eighteen, and Grandmother has died, so Claire is alone in the old family home.
A new neighbor has moved in, and ignores Claire's protective borders. He is an attractive if abstracted artist, and quickly becomes fascinated with Claire. Then Sidney returns home with her young daughter, Bay. Sidney has run away from her abusive husband, but she won't tell Claire where she's been, or anything else. Both sisters need to confront the past and the future, and the Waverly magic. The romantic subplots are a bit forced. Cousin Evanelle Waverly and her gift for giving the exactly correct gift at the time it will be needed makes up for it. It's a sweet, quaint, comfortable if not quite magical read. This was another Advance Reading Copy--thank you Random House.
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick held me spellbound completely. One of my customers recommended it to me, and I trusted her without even asking questions. It is wonderful.
I was rather surprised the book weighed in at 534 pages, or roughly 2.5 lbs. On the long side for juvenile fiction, if not quite Harry Potter (is the new book classified teen again?). On page 511, Hugo says he will create an automaton that can "produce one hundred and fifty-eight different pictures, and can write...an entire book, twenty-six thousand one hundred fifty-nine words. These words." I'm not sure if that is a precise inventory of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. It is mainly images--black and white--Hugo, clocks, clockworks, the station, the people he meets. It is cinematic in feel, which is quite fitting, though I don't want to give anything away... There are actual archival images interspersed with the fine, crosshatched, atmospheric closeups and pans.
The orphaned Hugo has been living with his uncle, who is the clock-keeper of a large Paris train station in the 1920s. However, the uncle has disappeared. Hugo has continued to tend the clocks, stealing food from the businesses in the station, since he doesn't know how to cash his uncle's paychecks, which continue to arrive. Hugo is fascinated by some mysterious drawings his father made in a notebook. The drawings show an elaborate machine, an automaton, like an early robot. Hugo believes if he can repair the broken automaton, it will communicate with his father. Hugo is caught stealing from a toyshop in the station. He makes friends with Isabelle, the goddaughter of the man who owns the toyshop, and they set out to solve the mystery of the notebook and the automaton. Its a wonderful escape to a Paris of magic and wonder.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Bursting at the seams
The vacation is over. We are back in beautiful San Diego, even if my body still thinks we're on eastern time. I've been waking up, wide awake, promptly at 4:00 a.m. almost every night. The kind of wide awake that definitely does not roll over and play sleep. So, I've been going to bed earlier and and earlier. And reading.
Now, before we left for ALA, I was sick, so I read. I also had to finish The Yiddish Policemen's Union --it was a compelling read plus it had 36 customer holds (reserves in SD lingo) so no way could I keep it out until we got back. Also, no way am I breaking my personal rule about never taking library books out of state. It always ends badly. So, three days and I finished it. Then there was a long airplane ride. Then I was sick some more. Then there was advance reading copies. Then there was fatigue. I mean exhaustion. Then another long plane ride...So this post, nu?
OK, I like to read Michael Chabon's work. I loved Wonder Boys, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was my best read of 2004. I really like Yiddish, too. So I was happy to spend time with the yids of Sitka. Apparently, Alaska is yet something else I know very little about. Five pages or so into the novel, I asked the Boyfriend, "Does Alaska have a large Jewish population?" He said something like "it's a fantastic construct." No duh, I said, and kept reading. And read and read about a film noir Aleyska. YPU is a murder mystery, with chess, music, kugel, slivovits, Orthodox gangsters, a Tlingit-Jewish sidekick, grey skies, heroin, a dead baby, a dead sister, a dead marriage--it's a wealth of an imagined world, with plenty of puns, jokes, satire, politics. A repeated refrain is "It's a strange time to be a Jew." A strange time and a strange place to imagine, to so fully realize. The hero says, "My homeland is my hat." Chabon's brainchild is a homeland, and all the alternatives, the negatives, the positives, rolled into an extravaganza.
Next up, The Control of Nature by John McPhee. My big bro recommended it. I have mixed feelings about McPhee. I like his writing. I think about going back and rereading Oranges. Unfortunately, like much nonfiction, McPhee puts me to sleep. The themes and stories of The Control of Nature really did interest me. The relationship of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, the cooling of the lava flows of the Eldfell volcano on Heimaey, Iceland, and the debris flows of the San Gabriel mountains. All interesting, even if McPhee did not set out to talk about geology. Of course, the 20/20 hindsight on the Mississippi was painful. Our puny attempts to control nature are painful. And really, it was good to have something guaranteed to put me to sleep. I'll have to look for some more nonfiction. Oh, I can start working on that Kumeyaay history! Yeah.
Moving right along, there were three ARCs that I started that I didn't finish. One's title was Marriage. I gave up before the main characters got married. Another had a suicide theme, and another was about someone with breast cancer. I was looking to escape, but not in those directions. Finally, I started Away by Amy Bloom. Away took me away, to Eastern Europe in the 1920s, and then the Lower East Side (Yiddish theater!), and then Alaska. It was an interesting counterpoint to the Chabon. Lillian has lost her entire family, mother, father, husband, and child, in a nightmare of violence against Jews in her village. She gets to New York, and finds her way into a job as a seamstress in the Yiddish theater. In no time, she becomes the mistress of the young prince of the theater, who uses Lillian to hide his inclinations elsewhere, and his father, who truly loves her. She learns English and is beginning to see a point to her life, when a cousin arrives from back home, and announces that Lillian's daughter Sophie is alive and living in Siberia with neighbors who stole her.
Lillian must leave to find Sophie, but neither of her lovers will help her. A friend helps her to stow away on a cross country train. She gets to Alaska, where she meets an ever-more-fantastic cast of characters: Gumdrop, an African-American whore, Chinky Chang, a Chinese grifter, Constable Arnold Gilpin, and the recluses of the Telegraph Trail. At some point, the suspension of disbelief was complete, and I would follow Lillian in her maternal quest anywhere.
I have to post this! I have read yet more...
Now, before we left for ALA, I was sick, so I read. I also had to finish The Yiddish Policemen's Union --it was a compelling read plus it had 36 customer holds (reserves in SD lingo) so no way could I keep it out until we got back. Also, no way am I breaking my personal rule about never taking library books out of state. It always ends badly. So, three days and I finished it. Then there was a long airplane ride. Then I was sick some more. Then there was advance reading copies. Then there was fatigue. I mean exhaustion. Then another long plane ride...So this post, nu?
OK, I like to read Michael Chabon's work. I loved Wonder Boys, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was my best read of 2004. I really like Yiddish, too. So I was happy to spend time with the yids of Sitka. Apparently, Alaska is yet something else I know very little about. Five pages or so into the novel, I asked the Boyfriend, "Does Alaska have a large Jewish population?" He said something like "it's a fantastic construct." No duh, I said, and kept reading. And read and read about a film noir Aleyska. YPU is a murder mystery, with chess, music, kugel, slivovits, Orthodox gangsters, a Tlingit-Jewish sidekick, grey skies, heroin, a dead baby, a dead sister, a dead marriage--it's a wealth of an imagined world, with plenty of puns, jokes, satire, politics. A repeated refrain is "It's a strange time to be a Jew." A strange time and a strange place to imagine, to so fully realize. The hero says, "My homeland is my hat." Chabon's brainchild is a homeland, and all the alternatives, the negatives, the positives, rolled into an extravaganza.
Next up, The Control of Nature by John McPhee. My big bro recommended it. I have mixed feelings about McPhee. I like his writing. I think about going back and rereading Oranges. Unfortunately, like much nonfiction, McPhee puts me to sleep. The themes and stories of The Control of Nature really did interest me. The relationship of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, the cooling of the lava flows of the Eldfell volcano on Heimaey, Iceland, and the debris flows of the San Gabriel mountains. All interesting, even if McPhee did not set out to talk about geology. Of course, the 20/20 hindsight on the Mississippi was painful. Our puny attempts to control nature are painful. And really, it was good to have something guaranteed to put me to sleep. I'll have to look for some more nonfiction. Oh, I can start working on that Kumeyaay history! Yeah.
Moving right along, there were three ARCs that I started that I didn't finish. One's title was Marriage. I gave up before the main characters got married. Another had a suicide theme, and another was about someone with breast cancer. I was looking to escape, but not in those directions. Finally, I started Away by Amy Bloom. Away took me away, to Eastern Europe in the 1920s, and then the Lower East Side (Yiddish theater!), and then Alaska. It was an interesting counterpoint to the Chabon. Lillian has lost her entire family, mother, father, husband, and child, in a nightmare of violence against Jews in her village. She gets to New York, and finds her way into a job as a seamstress in the Yiddish theater. In no time, she becomes the mistress of the young prince of the theater, who uses Lillian to hide his inclinations elsewhere, and his father, who truly loves her. She learns English and is beginning to see a point to her life, when a cousin arrives from back home, and announces that Lillian's daughter Sophie is alive and living in Siberia with neighbors who stole her.
Lillian must leave to find Sophie, but neither of her lovers will help her. A friend helps her to stow away on a cross country train. She gets to Alaska, where she meets an ever-more-fantastic cast of characters: Gumdrop, an African-American whore, Chinky Chang, a Chinese grifter, Constable Arnold Gilpin, and the recluses of the Telegraph Trail. At some point, the suspension of disbelief was complete, and I would follow Lillian in her maternal quest anywhere.
I have to post this! I have read yet more...
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