Review: Gilead

Gilead

By Marilynne Robinson

Picador 2004

247 pages

From my shelves

John Ames is an elderly Congregationalist minister living in a small town. He never expected to remarry late in life and be blessed with a child. As his health begins to fail, Ames thinks about the things he wants his son to know. He wonders what words of wisdom he should leave behind and begins to write about his past, his faith, and his conclusions about trying to live a good life. 

From a brief description, this book sounds as if it could be a bit boring. An old man writes down his thoughts on life and love? That's it? But in the capable hands of Marilynne Robinson, this short book is full of warmth and life that will take up residence in your soul. The crux of the brilliance rests in the character Robinson has created. Ames is quiet and contemplative at the end of his life but still holds on to his beliefs with passion. His calm, steadfast love for both his wife and his son is evident in every line that he writes. 

"I'm trying to make the best of our situation. That is, I'm trying to tell you things I might never have thought to tell you if I had brought you up myself, father and son, in the usual companionable way. When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all."

While Ames has a lot to say about belief in God and the role of a pastor, this book has a universal feel. It's about family and the ways that our upbringing makes us like our parents and also causes us to find our own paths. As he writes about his past, we meet someone in the present who was very dear to Ames and is now a source of worry. His best friend Robert named his son after him, but the young man has not behaved like his namesake. Our narrator spends much of the book trying to decide why he has so much difficulty forgiving this man.. He worries that Jack will encroach on his family when he is gone and perhaps this is a way for him to deal with his fear that his own son will not grow up the way he hopes.

Gilead is not the sort of read that you race through with bated breath. There is no great mystery to solve unless you, like Ames, are looking for answers to those great, quiet mysteries of life. Robinson's writing in this sparse novel is quietly brilliant and reading this book may leave you wondering about your own life and what it is that you will leave behind when you are gone. 

It's Monday and we have readathoned...

Hey friends. How are you? Did you readathon this weekend? I did and now I am one tired Lindsey. Did you have a great time? How many books did you read? Are you utterly exhausted? I think it's time for me to get back to a semblance of a normal schedule...at least until baby decides to make her debut and completely turn it on its head!

Read This Week:

Life After Life
By Kate Atkinson


Stardust
By Neil Gaiman

Read During the Readathon:

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
By Lorrie Moore


Fever
By Mary Beth Keane

Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Reviews of Carry on, Warrior and Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
Readathon Posts

Reading Now:

Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking
By Malcolm Gladwell

Up Next:

The Knife of Never Letting Go
By Patrick Ness

What are you reading this week?

24 Hour Readathon, post the fourth (and last!)

I realize that the readathon ended...oh...six or seven hours ago. I got up this morning and got the little guy and myself to church. Then it was home for lunch and a nap. A girl has got to do what a girl has got to do, right?

This year was not my most successful readathon per say, but I knew that I wasn't going to have the schedule or the energy to read as much as I might want. Plus I had fun and what more do we really want from a readathon? 

Finished!

147 pages

Finished!

306 pages

Read some to David!

38 pages (then he read the rest all by himself) 

Total page count: 491 pages

Time for the End of the Event Meme! 

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? The last one I stayed awake for, between 1 and 2 a.m. I was determined to finish that book! 
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Fever was really engaging. I think it would be a great choice. 
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Not that I can think of....
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I feel like the people in charge were really on top of things and everything went smoothly. You guys are awesome! 
5. How many books did you read? 2
6. What were the names of the books you read? Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? By Lorrie Moore and Fever by Mary Beth Keane 
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Fever 
8. Which did you enjoy least? I enjoyed both, but I liked Who Will Run the Frog Hospital slightly less than the other. 
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? I didn't cheer this year, but I hope to do it again in another readathon. 
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? 100%! Reader and Cheerleader, I think :) 

24 Hour Readathon, post the third

Well, I'm still here...or back again, I guess you could say. In the early afternoon, I took a break to clean up the house a bit and take a shower. Then my lovely in-laws came for a visit and took the hubby, the little guy, and me out for a happy birthday dinner. It's nice to spread your birthday out over a whole weekend. :)

So here is where we stand reading-wise:


Finito.
147 pages


216/306 pages read


38/120 pages read

Yes...I know, I know. The Boxcar Children book is David's, not mine. But I had a companion join me in reading this afternoon for a while and when he asked me to read a few chapters aloud to him, I couldn't refuse. I figure if I read the pages, I can count them towards my readathon total! Plus, he's a really cute reading buddy.

I'm going to try to read a few more chapters and then catch a few hours of sleep before writing a wrap-up post in the morning. I haven't made it for a full 24 hours of the readathon yet and I'm pretty sure that at almost nine months pregnant, this isn't the time to start.

To those of you who are going for the full 24 hours, you are amazing! Keep on keeping on....

24 Hour Readathon, post the second

Hello readers! How is it going??


I am pleased as punch to announce that I have finished my first book of the event. Woohoo!


147 pages - donesies!


I've also had a bagel (cinnamon raisin with half cream cheese, half butter, if you were wondering) and put away a bit of laundry. I am about to start reading this book:



But before I do, I'm going to take part in one of the fabulous challenges that you can do during the readathon. This is the "Re-title Your Book" challenge. Since I just finished Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? I am going to rename it Small Town Life in the 70s Is Tough. 

Back to reading for this girl! I hope you are all having a blast.

24 Hour Readathon, post the first

Hi Readathoners and blog readers! Happy Saturday! Happy Readathon! I'm a few minutes late to the party, but I'm ready to jump in and get a lot of reading done today. 

Here is the introductory questionnaire to get us started: 

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? 
I am reading from the beautiful state of New Jersey, specifically from my bed at this moment.


2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
Well, I am starting off with Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore. That's pretty exciting, mostly because I completely forgot about Lorrie Moore until I happened to see this book at the library Thursday night.

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
Mmm....it's still pretty early here, so maybe breakfast in a little while? Or my one delicious cup of coffee (when you are this pregnant, it's the little things that make you happy).

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
It was my birthday yesterday! 

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'm not cheering this year because I didn't want to leave people cheer-less if I had to make an early trip to the hospital to meet baby. That was a lot of fun last year, though! The good news is that I will read more books and have a lot of review posts ready to go in the next few weeks! 


Happy Reading, friends!

Let's Do the Readathon Again! (Spring 2013 Edition)

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the 24 Hour Readathon!! Woohoo! You are signed up, right?  If not, hop over here right now. I'll wait for you to come back.

Alright, now that you are taking part in the fabulous event known as the readathon, I want to talk about the books for a minute. I am going to be able to read for most of the day, which is awesome. My potential reads for tomorrow are sitting in the rocking chair we just got from our baby shower (hooray!). They won't be staying there for very long though - I think it's the comfiest chair in the house now.

These are my selections:
Equal of the Sun
Sleeping in Eden
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking 
Fever
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? 
Seating Arrangements

I am going to start out with Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? because it is nice and short and I will feel accomplished early in the day. I'm also going to try to get through Fever because it's due back to the library soon! Have you read any of my other books? Which one should I bump to the top of the list?

And now for the last important question - how are you doing Readathon? What are you reading? Where are you reading? What are you snacking on? 

I'm psyched. I hope you are excited too. I'm off to celebrate my birthday (!) and I will see you cool cats tomorrow morning.

Review: Z - A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

By Therese Anne Fowler

St. Martin's Press April 2013

374 pages

From the library

Historians and book lovers alike are fascinated by the tumultuous relationship of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. While Scott was lauded for his literary achievements, readers were equally interested in their drunken public arguments, rising and falling finances, and the implication that Zelda's husband reshaped her burgeoning literary efforts. In this novel, Therese Anne Fowler imagines the life of the woman who was overshadowed by her husband in life but became equally infamous after her death.

As you may have guessed last year when I re-read every F Scott novel, I am a huge fan of Fitzgerald's writing. I have read Zelda's novel Save Me The Waltz, as well as a lot of biographical material about the couple. It is clear that Ms. Fowler has done a copious amount of research herself in order to write this book. The story opens with the first time Zelda and F Scott met and races through their fabulous and tumultuous lives as some of the brightest stars of literary circles.

Historically Zelda suffers from a lack of a distinctive voice. When you read the Fitzgerald novels, it is easy to see the overlap - Zelda in F Scott's work and F Scott in hers. Much of her work was actually published under his name in order to get more money. While reading this book, I think it can be difficult to remember that this is fiction. Through Fowler, we are imagining what events and reactions might have been like, but we are looking at just one possibility. As someone who has read the source material, Zelda's voice never felt entirely authentic to me.

While it's tempting for us to feel like Fowler has vindicated Zelda, she has essentially done the same thing as F Scott. He molded her life so that she would be perceived as a dutiful wife and modified her writing so that she would be remembered that way. Is that any different from what Fowler has done? She has undoubtedly started with the deepest research and best intentions, but she too has chosen to portray Zelda in a specific way.

There is only so much we can claim to know about a person, in spite of letters and articles and novels. Therese Fowler has utilized fiction to bring Zelda to life and there is a lot to enjoy about this story. The pacing is perfect and the tension between Zelda the loving wife and Zelda the yearning artist is beautifully written. But I found myself wishing we got more insight into her mental condition (if  such a thing truly existed and wasn't merely a symptom of F Scott's insecurity). Reading Z reminds us that Zelda was a real woman with real emotions and a real story and I found myself preferring whatever snippets of truth we have to another glossy fabrication. 

Review: Carry on, Warrior

Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed

By Glennon Doyle Melton

Scribner April 2013

266 pages 

From my shelves 

Glennon Melton is a woman with a difficult past. She struggled with alcoholism and bulimia and was arrested several times. After she became a wife and a mother, she felt that she had to hide her true feelings about life and the secrets of her past. One day she realized that if she was always hiding, everyone else was hiding too. She decided to start being honest and discovered that everyone is living a life that is brutiful - half beautiful and half brutal. Glennon founded a website called Momastery and began writing about the wild joy and terrifying sorrow of this life we all share. Carry On, Warrior is a collection of some of these essays.

Glennon is not afraid to delve into the difficult parts of life. She writes candidly about her time in a mental hospital, her diagnosis of Lyme disease, and the difficulties she has faced in her marriage. She writes to free herself and to allow others the freedom to share their stories because she believes that sharing the real stuff of life brings us closer together. When she shares about her dark places, the reader feels less alone in their own struggles.

That's not to say that this book is a downer. This was one of the few books that actually made me laugh out loud - and often. The woman who wrote this book is heartfelt and committed, but she is also intensely clumsy and extremely hopeless at almost anything considered domestic. She confesses that she often sets her kitchen on fire, sent her husband to work with a PB and J sandwich and goldfish for lunch, and used to have her daughter run her doll carriage over the rug so that it looked like she had vacuumed. I got a good chuckle out of her confessions about laundry:

"I learned two very important things that day, and I'd like to share them with you, just in case you are in the Laundry and Wife Remedial Classes, like I am.

#1 This is, apparently, how laundry works: say your laundry day is Wednesday. You cannot put the laundry in the washer on one Wednesday and then wait to put it in the dryer until the following Wednesday. You must finish it all on the SAME Wednesday. It's unfair but true. If you don't, your family will smell like dead mice.

#2 You must be sweeter to your husband so he is not afraid to tell you that your entire family reeks. 

Housekeeping and marriage are complicated." 

I tore through this book in one day, promising myself that I would read just one more essay before I finally accomplished a few things. Needless to say, not much work got accomplished that day. This is a book I will go back to time and again, to fly through in awe of Glennon's candor and effortless writing and then to savor each essay one by one and ruminate on what she says about marriage, motherhood, and living a brave life in a scary world. 

It's Monday and there are books and birthdays and things!

Happy Monday (or Sunday, depending on when you are reading this)! How was your week? The second half of this week was decidedly preferable since the first half involved a nasty stomach bug. This weekend, we had our baby shower which means that our house is full of onesies and giant boxes of diapers. It's time to do some major rearranging and organizing to find a home for all of this stuff before baby arrives! 

Oh, and it's almost my birthday! I think I must be getting older, or at least preoccupied with the upcoming baby, because I sort of forgot it was coming up. Friday will be my birthday, on Saturday we will readathon, and then I will be celebrating with the family on Sunday and Monday. It looks like a good weekend to me! Baby has strict instructions that she is not allowed to come until May. I may be a grownup, but I still don't want to share my birthday! 

Read This Week: 

Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
By Therese Anne Fowler

Gilead
By Marilynne Robinson

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday
Bookish Links
Reviews of When Will There Be Good News? and The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards 

Reading Now:

Life After Life
By Kate Atkinson


Up Next:

Stardust
By Neil Gaiman


What did you read this week? 

Review: The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

By Kristopher Jansma

Viking March 2013

251 pages

From the library 

Our narrator in this novel is an unnamed writer. He begins the book by explaining that he has lost every book he has ever written. He then proceeds to tell you the story of his life, or at least some versions of his life, beginning when he was a child who wrote a book in an airport terminal while waiting for his mother. The reader then follows him to college where he meets two people who will forever affect his life - a fellow writer and an enchanting actress. The threesome will travel the world where they will fall in and out of love and friendship, take on new identities, bask in glorious successes and hit their absolute lowest points. But as our narrator warns us, "these stories are all true, but only somewhere else." 

This is a fantastic debut novel. It deals with love and loss, friendship and fame, and what it means to be a writer. In spite of these important issues, it's a breeze to read and one of those books you will find yourself carrying everywhere just to sneak in a few more pages. While the characters are constantly evolving (or being rewritten), they are easy to love (or at least love to hate, in some moments). There were portions of this book that reminded me of both Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys, but I enjoyed this book and its characters much more. 

This is the story, or rather several stories, of an unreliable narrator. After I finished the book, there was a part of me that was tempted to immediately start it over in order to try to ascertain which version was the truth. But then I realized I really didn't care - each story was wonderful in its own right and deciding that one was the truth and the others made-up wouldn't diminish that. As our narrator himself says, "Maybe I'll continue with the truth. Maybe I won't. Would you know either way? Would you care, truly? Or perhaps I'll be long gone by then; who can say? We're all just travelers, after all, telling stories, passing time."

I'm a sucker for an unreliable narrator and a love of story that is obvious on every page. Kristopher Jansma accomplishes all this and more in a book that is certainly one of my favorite books in April, if not 2013. 

Bookish Links

Remember when I cheerfully wrote on a Sunday evening that we had been visited by a stomach bug but everyone had emerged healthy? Don't let me do that again. I obviously jinxed us. I am (hopefully) done with it for now, but David is dealing with a second round. Sigh.
In the meantime, I give you some bookish stuff on the internet. Enjoy!



I love words, especially big or obscure ones. So this article highlighting 18 obsolete words was right up my alley. I learned that I am currently with squirrel and have been known to groak from time to time.


BookRiot is a great website for all bookish people. I read it daily and was thrilled to find a bookstore choose your own adventure. What could be better?


There has been a lot of talk in the past few weeks about what responsibility, if any, a reader owes to an author. Jenn of Picky Girl Reads argues that readers should not feel obligated to support an author in any way. I agree - if there is an author who I adore, I will purchase their books and I will praise them to everyone I meet. But I do not owe any author my money or my positive acclaim simply because they wrote a book.


The 2012 Vida Count. If you are unaware, this is a survey done each year of major publications. These researchers look at the breakdown of men and women writers whose books are reviewed and the ratio of men and women who are doing the reviewing. The numbers are abysmal, to say the least.


On a similar note, this article is a really heartbreaking read. Deborah Kogan is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent novel was nominated for The Women's Prize for Fiction. She has been discounted and manipulated so many times as both a woman and an author.

"Reading is like Mother Teresa or breastfeeding. Untouchable. Unassailable. If you’re a kid with a reading problem, people pin awards on you. If you’re an adult, they pretend to be impressed.

But nobody tells you to stop."

Loving to read is both a blessing and a curse, according to Rainbow Rowell. 

Ok, that's it. Go forth, read lots of articles, and irritate your husband by opening a hundred tabs at once. Oh, that's just me?

Review: When Will There Be Good News?

When Will There Be Good News? 

Jackson Brodie #3

By Kate Atkinson

Back Bay Books 2010

388 pages

From my shelves

When Joanna Mason is six years old, her life is shattered forever by a brutal crime and the loss of her family. Thirty years later, the murderer is released from prison. That same week, a sixteen year old girl named Reggie alerts Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe that her employer Dr. Hunter is missing under suspicious circumstances. Monroe is skeptical but agrees to investigate when Hunter's husband explains away the disappearance with  lies. As Reggie worries about her employer and friend, Jackson Brodie boards a train that will take a fateful ride right through Reggie's neighborhood. These seemingly disparate story lines come together to create a book that readers will not want to put down.

While I would never ague that Atkinson can't write an excellent mystery, the best part of this book for me was the way in which old and new characters continued to surprise me. The novel opens with a horrific crime. The back of the book tells you this act will occur but I was so caught up with the fascinating characters being created before my eyes that I was truly shocked when it happened. We also meet up with Atkinson's characters Jackson Brodie and Louise Monroe from earlier books. Although we have encountered them before, Atkinson puts them in situations that were completely unexpected. Their actions make sense for their characters, but it's wonderful to be surprised as a reader.

Each of the characters are struggling to find some semblance of happiness. Brodie has married (again) and while he should be content, he finds that his mind wanders constantly to Louise and the possibility that he has another child. While he was happy to leave the world of the soldier and the policeman and the private eye behind, he is still searching for some sort of purpose and finding himself terribly unsatisfied. Louise has married the seemingly perfect man who drives her absolutely insane. And then we are introduced to Reggie, the new heroine of this book. She is living a truly difficult life. Everyone in her family is either dead or involved in crime yet she soldiers on, trying to find some semblance of happiness with the Hunter family. Reggie is a wonderful character, full of pluck and determination. I think Atkinson could easily write another book about this charming waif who steals the book away from the other characters.

When Will There Be Good News? is a book that is impossible to easily categorize. It's a thrilling mystery involving mistaken identities, kidnapping, and murder. It's an insightful character study of people who get nothing they want but carry on and people who get everything they want and are miserable. At its most basic and important level, it's a really well-written book.

It's Monday and life is never boring...

Thank goodness. After a week of slogging through one tough read, I raced through three wonderful books this week. The reading magic is restored!

In other news, we were visited by the ever-awful 24 hour bug this week. Thankfully, David was the only victim and he is back to wading in ponds and begging me for more reading time.

Also, apparently this is happening...

We are at T - 27 days until baby. Ahhh!!!! Any thoughts on things we should do in the last few weeks sans newborn? 

Read This Week:

When Will There Be Good News?

By Kate Atkinson


The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards 
By Kristopher Jansma

Carry on Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed
By Glennon Doyle Melton

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday

Reviews of The Hobbit, Gods at War and Middle C

Reading Now:


Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
By Therese Anne Fowler


Up Next:

Gilead
By Marilynne Robinson


What are you reading this week? 

Review: Middle C

Middle C

By William H. Gass

Knopf March 2013

395 pages

From the library 

In 1938 Austria, a man refuses to be complicit with the Nazi's inevitable rise to power. He changes his name and identity, as well as those of his wife and two small children. But it seems that in constantly changing his identity, he has forgotten who he is and where his responsibilities lie. He leaves his family behind, never to be seen again. His wife relocates to Ohio with their children and while the daughter Debbie easily adapts to American life, Joey searches for answers in music, in books, and in the lonely corners of his own mind.

This novel is difficult to read. In some ways, that turned me off from reading it but in other ways I admired Gass' decision to tell this story on his terms. Middle C is difficult to really get into and once you put it down, it is hard to pick it up again. That being said, I think I'm glad I persevered and read this novel.

We go back and forth between a young Joey who is trying to find his way in life away from the shadow of his father's bad decisions and an older Professor Joseph who has lost most of his grip on reality, perhaps because he is constantly recreating it. The professor lives as a hermit when not arguing with his mother or shaking his head at students who don't know as much as he expects. The character of Joey is quite naive and open, while his older self is bitter and broken. The fascinating part is watching how one becomes the other.

Joseph is disgusted with the world in which he lives. He creates a museum of inhumanity where he contemplates the atrocities committed by humanity all over the world throughout time. He constantly writes and rewrites a single sentence in an attempt to put the evil of humanity into words just as he rewrites his own history. But his attempts to remain unencumbered by relationships are hampered by his father's legacy.

"His father, he liked to imagine, understood how future conditions drew upon present desires to ready the field and plant the earth, scour cities and hills for next year's pogroms; how the masked ball that has not yet been held brings about its preparations: an engraved invitation, a new dress, a novel disguise, a fresh date. And there are all sorts of details that "flesh out" these dreams: the corsage that a boyfriend sends ahead of himself, the dark car that whisks you and your young prince away, the bright lights that dominate the party rooms, the music of Mozart, the glitter of silks, skins and jewels...ah, he had let his mind flee into a fiction...he heard hunting horns, hooves, and baying dogs.
For the young prince will become a poor printer, the bright lights will be those of searching beams, bomb sounds will follow sirens, and sometimes screams will even precede. But he, Joey the Joseph, will have no actual past; he will be safely out of the stream of consequences: I was not here, I was not there, I was not noticed anywhere."

Middle C is unlike any novel you have read before. The concepts and the language are challenging, but Gass is revered as a master at the top of his game. His questions about identity, history, and humanity will resonate with readers who are willing to stick with this book to the end.

Review: Gods at War

Gods At War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart

By Kyle Idleman

Zondervan February 2013

240 pages

For review from The DeMoss Group 

Idolatry is something we read about the Bible, an issue that people dealt with a long time ago. It's not something that happens anymore. After all, when is the last time you've seen someone worship a golden calf? But Kyle Idleman argues that idolatry is is alive and well for all of us. Everyone worships something. But even people who would state that they worship God are susceptible to the siren song of fame, success, or sex. In gods at war, Idleman examines the things that we are focused on and teaches readers how to put the focus of their lives back on God.

Pastor Idleman is a very amiable writer. While his topic is serious, he intersperses the pages with personal anecdotes and many moments of wry humor. The book is broken up into four parts - gods at war, the temple of pleasure, the temple of power, and the temple of love. Each section utilizes biblical and contemporary examples and concludes with questions that will help you to figure out which issues are taking over your life. 

This book is an important read, but I wished at certain moments that Idleman had been clearer and carried things out to their conclusions. There are places where he neglects to emphasize that each of the things mentioned - success, sex, family - are good when they are used in the proper place. God gives these exact gifts for us to enjoy. The problem is only when we place God's gifts before God himself. The book also ends rather abruptly. I don't know that readers need a recap of everything that has been covered, but a conclusion would have really strengthened this book.

If you constantly stress about your career, spend your time trying to discover the next big thing in entertainment, or always find yourself on the defensive about your choices, you may discover that you have been worshiping something all along. Kyle Idleman assures his readers that they are not alone, that things can change, and that our focus can be returned to the one who gives us all of these good things. 

To the ladies and gents of the FTC: I received this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Review: The Hobbit

The Hobbit

By J.R.R. Tolkien

Ballantine Books 1973

305 pages

From my shelves 

The Hobbit is the prequel or prelude to one of the most beloved fantasy series of all time. J.R.R. Tolkien has created a world populated by wizards, dwarves, and terrifying monsters. Our hero in this tale is one Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who would much prefer staying in his lovely hole and smoking his pipe to any sort of adventure. But his tranquility is interrupted when the wizard Gandalf appears at his door and sends him off on a quest with a group of noisy, hungry dwarves. The unlikely band sets off to defeat the fearsome dragon Smaug and recover lost treasure.

I am one of the rare people who read this book for the first time as an adult. It seems like there is little to add to the conversation. This story has been beloved by generations of readers, both children and adults. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest adventures ever written. So what can I write in the face of all that?

Well...I was surprised by this book. I went in with very little knowledge of the plot or characters. For an adventure story, the pacing is not particularly quick. There is a lot of meandering to this tale, filled with descriptions of scenery or food. It takes a long time for our fearless band to get...well, anywhere. It would be easy to say that Tolkien could have benefited from a stricter editor. But this is the charm of the novel. This author and these characters invite you to get comfortable and really experience a story without worrying about the time it takes to read it. You are invited along on the adventure. It's going to take a while, but all good adventures do.

Bilbo Baggins is indeed an unexpected hero going on an unexpected journey. There is a lot of character growth that happens along the way, but Tolkien also expertly illustrates that the journey does not end with the completion of the mission. How do you return home after a life-changing adventure? Can you return home and resume life just as it was?

I'm glad I finally read The Hobbit. I enjoyed it, maybe more than I thought I would. But I have to say that I'm not itching to read The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So what do you think, fellow book lovers? Should I give the trilogy a chance too or just revel in having experienced Tolkien and his magical world in The Hobbit? 

It's Monday and I need to get reading!

My friends, I have had one of those weeks where it takes the whole thing to read just one book. We were in Washington D.C. on a brief vacation at the beginning of the week and I've been practicing the rest of the week to fill in for our church pianist. Plus the book I've been reading is sort of a dense read...I don't mean that in a negative way, but it takes some brain power and it's not the kind of book you can power through.

I need to get reading pronto because I think I have a problem known as too-many-new-releases-itis. Between the library, winning a book, and giving in and buying a book I was really looking forward to, I have these books sitting on my shelf right now:

                                        

I think I have a problem....


Read This Week:

Middle C
By William H. Gass

Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
March Wrap-Up
Review of The Teleportation Accident

Reading Now:

When Will There Be Good News?
By Kate Atkinson

Up Next:

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards
By Kristopher Jansma


What are you reading this week?

March Wrap-Up

March went quickly, didn't it? We are now in the home stretch with a little more than a month before the littlest bookworm makes her debut around here. I'm looking forward to warmer weather in April and my birthday at the end of the month! 

With regards to books, I have a ton of them coming in for me at the library. March/April looks great for new releases and I'm psyched to read them and chat with you about them! 


Books reviewed in March: 13
Pages Read: 3,703
Fiction/Non-fiction: 9/4
Female authors/male authors: 9/4
My books/library books: 6/7
Lindsey's favorite books in March: Where'd You Go Bernadette and The Red Garden 

Books reviewed with David: 2
David's favorite book in February: Five Children and It 

Hey guys! It's my first time on the subway! 

Your turn! What did you read in March that I must add to my bookshelves immediately??

Review: The Teleportation Accident

The Teleportation Accident

By Ned Beauman

Bloomsbury USA February 2013

357 pages

From the library

The Teleportation Accident follows the (mis)adventures of one Egon Loeser, a German set designer who falls hopelessly in lust with a young woman named Adele. He follows her from pre-WWII Germany to CalTech in California, desperate to have her for his own. Along the way, he meets a bizarre group of friends, acquaintances, and enemies and wonders what really happened to Adriano Lavicini, his theatrical hero, who created a mysterious machine known as the Teleportation Device. 

While reading this book, I just couldn't make up my mind about it. Most of the time, I really didn't like it. At its basest level, Ned Beauman has written a Man Booker nominated book about a man who really wants to get laid. A good portion of this book is Egon lamenting that he cannot have this woman he idolizes in spite of barely knowing her. The second issue I had is that this is a very smart book...and its author knows it. There were moments where I truly felt that Beauman was doing the literary equivalent of standing in a large library, twirling his mustache with drink in hand and saying, "Ah yes, aren't we clever? Did you get that little joke? Did you catch that brilliant reference on page 63?" And yet, I felt oddly compelled to keep reading.

While Egon himself is not necessarily someone you are rooting for, the things going on around him are zany and compelling. He manages to get mixed up with a con man in Paris, Soviet spies in LA, and a (mad?) scientist on the campus of CalTech where a bizarre string of murders is taking place. It's a little bit science fiction, some murder mystery, with a dash of historical fiction thrown in for good measure. Have I mentioned that Mr. Beauman also provides readers with multiple endings?

While the events of this novel are always fascinating, the characters fall really flat. Somewhere between the humor and the intellect should be some emotional connection, but I never had the impulse to really care for or root for these characters (fascinating as they may be). Many people are comparing this book to the writing of Nick Harkaway and his book Angelmaker in particular. The Teleportation Accident has some similar tones of whimsy with zany characters and even crazier plot points, but I found Angelmaker a much better read.