It's Monday and we are out of here!

Hey everybody! I hope you had a very happy Easter. We had a great time with both sides of the family. Now we are heading off for a few days of vacation in Washington D.C. We are going to visit the zoo and some of the museums and enjoy some time with my sisters and mom. It will be David's first trip to a big city and some much needed relaxation for the hubby and me.

I promise to come visit your "It's Monday" posts after I get back!

Read This Week:

The Teleportation Accident
By Ned Beauman


Gods at War
By Kyle Idleman

Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Reviews of The Madonnas of Echo Park, The Pelican Brief and Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures
Wednesdays with David: King Arthur's Very Great Grandson 

Reading Now:

Middle C
By William H Glass

Up Next:

When Will There Be Good News?
By Kate Atkinson


What are you reading this week?

Review: Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

By Emma Straub

Riverhead Books 2012

304 pages

From the library

My review of Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures is up at the Atlantic Highlands Herald. Hop on over and check it out! 

If you are looking for more books about show biz back in the day, you can read my reviews of The Chaperone or The Last Tycoon. 

Have a blessed Easter weekend - see you on Monday! 

Review: The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief

By John Grisham

Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing 1992

436 pages

From my shelves

One night in Washington D.C., two supreme court justices are murdered. The circumstances of the murders are very different, but the two deaths must be connected. As the FBI pursues leads, a young law student writes a brief explaining what might have happened. Darby thinks that it is a shot in the dark until someone tries to murder her too. She goes on the run, desperate to stay alive and desperate to find out who murdered the judges and is now after her. Can she trust a journalist to find the answers and tell her story or will she end up like Justices Rosenberg and Jensen?

This was my first time reading a novel by John Grisham and I found it an engaging read. As someone who had interest in both the law and journalism once upon a time, I thought those aspects of the story were really interesting. They play important parts, but they don't make the story inaccessible for those of us without our law degrees. It was funny to note how dated this story feels, though. Published in 1992, it's a trip down a memory lane of pay phones and typewriters. But the story of government conspiracy and intrigue seems like it could happen twenty years ago or tomorrow.

Grisham really builds the tension throughout - I was never sure if Darby was going to make it through another day despite her best efforts to hide from the men chasing her. I see why people enjoy reading his novels. They are fast paced and interesting, perfect for a one-day marathon read. I don't think I'm going to run out and read everything he has written (I would be at it for a while with more than 25 books!), but I'm glad I gave his writing a try.


Do you enjoy reading John Grisham's books? Which is your favorite? 

Wednesdays with David: King Arthur's Very Great Grandson

King Arthur's Very Great Grandson

By Kenneth Kraegel 

Candlewick 2012

From the library

The story: On the day he turns six years old, Henry Alfred Grummorson sets out to have a grand adventure like his great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather King Arthur. He has heard that there are many fierce creatures in the land, including a cyclops, a dragon, a griffin, and a leviathan. Can he use his strength and skill to defeat the monsters or will things go differently than he planned?

Mama opines: This is one of those books that is really fun to read out loud. There are monsters and quests and passages in all caps, which of course calls for you and your little one to yell it out. It starts off as a book about boys and their seemingly inherent need to fight, but quickly becomes a sweet story about childhood and friendship.

Thoughts from David: I like it because it has a little boy who is six years old and because he battles a terrible dragon. Then he battles a giant. He battles a Griffin too and the Leviathin in the ocean.

Favorite part: When he battles everyone

Happy Reading! 

Review: The Madonnas of Echo Park

The Madonnas of Echo Park

By Brando Skyhorse

Free Press 2010 

199 pages

From the library

PEN/Hemingway Award in 2013, #2

Brando Skyhorse begins the Author's Note by saying that "this book was written because of a twelve-year-old girl named Aurora Esperanza." As a child, Skyhorse insulted a classmate about her ethnic background. He spends the next several years of his life trying to figure out how to apologize to a girl who disappeared from his school, but never from his thoughts. In The Madonnas of Echo Park, he imagines what happened to his classmate, as well as the people she knew and the houses and streets that she thought of as home. 

This book is a series of interconnected stories. One of the most interesting parts for me was finding the connections. The characters are not obviously related. Sometimes I would read through most of the story before discovering that this narrator was the neighbor, friend, or relative of a previous character. Skyhorse does a wonderful job of showing how connected our lives are, even if we are not aware of all of the links. 

The Madonnas of Echo Park touches on so many topics, including faith, family, identity, and a place to call home. Echo Park is a tiny community of LA populated by the people who are so often ignored - the day laborers waiting on the corner, the woman who keeps your house sparkling, the crazy lady muttering to herself at the bus stop. Skyhorse imbues each character with a distinct personality and story. Felicia is a maid who becomes unexpectedly close to the lady of the house. Duchess and Angie are best friends whose relationship dissolves just as quickly as it started. And our first story is about Hector, a man looking for day labor who is growing older and can't see his life getting any better.

He begins his tale by saying, "I measure the land not by what I have but by what I have lost, because the more you lose, the more American you become. In the rolling jade valleys of Elysian Park, my family lost their home in Chavez Ravine to the cheers of gringos rooting for a baseball team they stole from another town. Down the hill in Echo Park, I lost my wife - and the woman I left her for - when I ran out of excuses and they ran out of forgiveness. Across town, in Hollywood, I lost my job of eighteen years when a restaurant that catered to fashion and fame found its last customers were those who had neither. And my daughters, they are both lost to me, somewhere in the California sunshine. What I thought I could not lose was my place in this country. How can you lose something that never belonged to you?"

This slight novel packs a lot of punch. It would be easy to make this novel political, for Brando Skyhorse to condemn those of us who live in blissful ignorance of the pervasiveness of racism and class warfare. Instead, he writes about humanity and reminds us that everyone is the same at their core, regardless of which part of town they call their own. You will be thinking about the characters and about Echo Park itself for days after you finish the book. 

It's Monday and it's almost Easter?!?

Another week, another group of books! This week has been a little slow reading wise. I finished reading The Hobbit, which took me a lot longer to read than I anticipated! Now I'm reading The Teleportation Accident, which is...interesting so far. Has anyone read it already? What did you think?

It's been a busy week around here. This is a crazy time of year  for a couple who works together at a church! Easter is right around the corner and there is a lot to do. David...sniffle...got....sob...a big boy bed. He loves it. I will get used to it sooner or later. We also lost our family pet this week. Fishy was a great goldfish. He made a move across county lines with us and survived an accidental food dump in his tank. David seems to be handling it pretty well, but it's still sad for our family. On Thursday, I drove down to see my best friend for a few days. Now usually we fit in some reading during our weekends together. But this time, we obviously had to marathon the entire first season of Veronica Mars. You understand, right? 

Read This Week:

The Hobbit

By J.R.R. Tolkien

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday

Wednesdays with David: Five Children and It 

Reviews of Parlor Games and Where'd You Go, Bernadette


Reading Now:

The Teleportation Accident

By Ned Beauman

Up Next:

Gods at War

By Kyle Idleman 

What are you reading this week? 

Review: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Where'd You Go, Bernadette

By Maria Semple 

Little, Brown, and Company 2012

326 pages

From the library

Where'd You Go, Bernadette appears to be a breakout hit in the literary world. It's the story of a woman named Bernadette who isn't too fond of other people. She interacts only with her husband and daughter, achieving this goal by hiring a virtual assistant in India to talk to people on her behalf. When her daughter Bee announces that she wants to take a family cruise to Antarctica as a reward for her excellent grades, Bernadette tentatively agrees. But Bernadette can barely handle the pick-up line at Bee's school and days before the trip, Bernadette disappears without a trace.

Reviewers describe it as hilarious and quirky, clever and delightful. It recently made the long list of the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013. So the question is...does this book live up to the hype?

I should have hated this book. I don't usually appreciate books that are told through correspondence, but this one works wonderfully. Bernadette's daughter Bee tries to determine what happened to her mother by sorting through emails, letters, and notes. And I loved it. 

This book is really funny. Bernadette has no concept of normal social graces - while she tries to avoid people when possible, she will also say exactly what she thinks with no thought about manners or what is appropriate for a situation. Bernadette seems a bit loony to the people in her community and to us as we read about her misadventures. But as the novel progresses, it becomes obvious that Bernadette's neuroses are an honest reaction to a crazy world. Maybe she is the sanest character of them all. 

This novel is different from anything you've been reading. It's funny and surprisingly insightful and you just might find yourself hiding out in your house so you can get through five more pages...or finish the book. 

Wednesdays with David: Five Children and It

Five Children and It

By E. Nesbit

Scholastic 1988

197 pages

From our shelves

The story: Five siblings set out to explore the sand pit near their house. They discover a mysterious creature with eyes like a snail, hands like a monkey, and a small body covered in fur. The sand fairy agrees to grant them one wish per day. The children wish to be beautiful, to have wings, and to have a castle. But sometimes having your wish come true can make things very complicated....

Mama opines: David is really enjoying reading on his own these days, so I'm trying to find some books that he might not pick for the two of us to read together. This book was my mom's and it's a wonderful story, set in the English countryside, and filled with magic. The chapters are sort of long, but we are having a good time reading this in the midst of all the Boxcar Children and Magic Treehouse.

Thoughts from David: I like it because the sand fairy is so so so cool. And the children are so cool. And I like it because they try getting in the door, but they never get in it.
Favorite part: When they meet the sand fairy...

Happy Reading!

Review: Parlor Games

Parlor Games

By Maryka Biaggio

Doubleday 2013

333 pages

From the library

May Dugas stands on trial in May of 1917. She is a charged with extortion and the residents of her tiny hometown have shown up in droves to determine if their most infamous resident is innocent or guilty. They are fascinated by the hometown girl who climbed through society to become a baroness, only to be brought down by a close friend who claims that May used her for her fortune. May appeals to the jurors, believing that truthfully telling her entire story will result in her exoneration. 

This book has a sweeping reach. Readers follow May from the small town of Menominee, Michigan to Chicago and then to San Francisco, New York City, London, and Shanghai. Each location is created with precise attention to detail and it's really fun to see the differences between high society in different parts of the world. It is interesting to read this story and try to determine which parts of the story are history and which are details created by Biaggio. 

While this book is a quick read, I found myself very disappointed. For a book that centers on "the most dangerous woman in the world," as the Pinkerton Agency dubbed her, she is a surprisingly flat character. We never really get to know her and she seems to have no reaction to things that would radically alter our lives. When May first moves to Chicago, circumstances force her to become a prostitute in an infamous brothel. For a small town girl who has only had one serious relationship, the reader might expect some major ramifications. Instead, May seems to brush off the fact that her life has changed in an irrevocable way and we get no reaction from her. Perhaps Biaggio means us to feel that we are being played, just like the other characters in the novel. But it leads to a flat reading experience. 

I wanted more from the Pinkerton aspect of the story too. I chose to read this book, in part, to find out more about those detectives and how they worked.  Reed Dougherty manages to track May all over the world and thwart her at almost every turn. But because we only see him through May's eyes, he seems more like a plot device than a character. He is either a man who is truly committed to his job or someone who has a serious interest in Ms. Dugas. But we never find out - Dougherty shows up, ruins May's carefully constructed plans, and then is gone. 

Parlor Games is based on a real woman who did break out of the social confines of her time and was acclaimed as one of the most glamorous women to ever walk the halls of high society. She was also a woman who went to trial and may have been guilty of extorting an untold number of people. But reading this book didn't create the desire for me to find out more about this woman. It never progressed from a sequence of events to an examination of an infamous person in American history. 

It's Monday and I'm ready for another week!

Hey there, party people. How are things? Did you do anything fun for St. Patrick's day? This has been a busy but productive weekend around here. Our church music director is away for a few weeks, so I have been covering for her. That meant planning music, playing the piano, singing, and working with the choir. It went well, but it was an exhausting Sunday morning! My in-laws were here this weekend visiting and helping us put ceiling fans into some of the bedrooms. I am very thankful that I married into a wonderful (and handy) family. 

Read This Week:

The Pelican Brief

By John Grisham

The Madonnas of Echo Park

By Brando Skyhorse

Posts from this Past Week:

It's Monday

Review(lettes) of Pregnancy and Baby Books

Reviews of The Red Garden and The Happiness Project 

Reading Now:

The Hobbit
By J.R.R. Tolkien

Up Next:

The Teleportation Accident
By Ned Beauman 

What are you reading this week? 

Review: The Happiness Project

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

By Gretchen Rubin

Harper Paperback 2011

297 pages

From my shelves

Gretchen Rubin was a lawyer-turned-writer who had a realization one day while heading home. She had a lot of good things in her life - a caring husband, a writing career, two beautiful daughters, close friends, and good health. She was happy...or was she? Could she be happier? Was she missing some secret formula to lessen the frustration and anxiety that she often felt? The Happiness Project is Rubin's one year journey to find out what makes people happy and apply those principles to her own life. 

You can see some of Rubin's training as a lawyer come through in these pages. A woman after my own heart, she begins her project by doing copious amounts of reading. She studied philosophy, religion, psychology and pored through both novels and biographies to find out what exactly happiness is and how people can attain it. The year was divided into twelve focuses - vitality, marriage, work, parenthood, leisure, friendship, money, eternity, books, mindfulness, and happiness. Rubin then sets up concrete goals for each month, which build on each other until December when she tries to keep all of her resolutions.

This book is very readable because Rubin herself is so relatable. She writes with humor and ease, inviting you to peek into her experiment with all of its triumphs and failures. We pick up a lot of important tidbits from her research, such as taking care of ourselves, letting things go, and working at big problems in small increments. In spite of this, I didn't love The Happiness Project.

While I read it quickly and picked up some things that I may apply to my own life, a lot of the things discussed in these pages seem like common sense. They may be bits of common sense that are hard to actually apply, but they are still principles that most of us have somewhere in the back of our brains. I tend to think that I also have trouble with these "stunt memoirs," as they are often called. There are so many books where people set out to do something for a year and I've been somewhat disappointed in the few that I have read. I think that the projects seem both too narrow and too broad and I finish the book wondering what was cut from its pages that I might have found interesting.

Is there some wisdom to be gleaned from The Happiness Project? Absolutely. Is Gretchen Rubin a pretty engaging writer? Yes, she is. But Rubin's project (and book) just didn't change my life the way it changed hers. 

Review: The Red Garden

The Red Garden

By Alice Hoffman

Broadway Paperbacks 2011

270 pages

From my shelves

Blackwell, Massachusetts may seem like an ordinary small town at first glance. It was founded in the 1700s by William and Hallie Brady and a few other brave families. Since then, children have been born and grandparents have died but the original families continue to live in the town. Things are not as simple as they may seem in Blackwell - the ghost of a young girl haunts the banks of the river, its inhabitants have unusual encounters with bears, and the soil in the garden of the Brady family home turns everything blood red. This town and its citizens have plenty of secrets, a lot of shared history, and maybe even a little magic. 

This is my second foray into the books of Alice Hoffman and I was not disappointed. Each chapter is distinct, but interconnected. One chapter might deal with the Brady family and then the next would be about the children of their neighbors. The characters we meet in these stories are the ones who don't quite fit within the narrow confines of their town's expectations - Hallie Brady, who single-handedly saved her fellow settlers from starvation during that first winter, the precocious daughter of the schoolteacher who keeps her mother's past a secret, and the mysterious fisherman's wife, who speaks to no one. 

Hoffman does so much within these short, heartfelt stories. We see 200 years of history through the lens of a tiny town, so change is slow but persistent. While reading, you may feel like you have climbed into a fairy tale. But magic can't always save the men and women of Blackwell from isolation, heartache, and terrible loss. The writing is gorgeous and I found myself lost in Hoffman's words, in the stories of her characters, and in this strange little town and its beloved legends. 

I would love to have had a family/town tree while reading this novel. I know that I missed some connections throughout. But I suppose that's alright - it just gives me an excuse to read these wonderful stories again. 

Review(lettes): Pregnancy and Baby Books

With a little less than two months to go before this baby girl makes her big entrance, I've been doing some research. I figure it can't hurt to brush up on the basics of infant care and see if anything can be done about easing the transition for our formerly only child. 

I've read a few books lately and I'm ready to tell you which ones should have a home on your shelves and which ones you can leave to languish at the library....

This book is by a mother of three. Judy Dunn interviewed many parents and children before, immediately after, and a few years after the birth of subsequent children and she intersperses these interviews within the chapters. Maybe it's because the author is so intent on covering each possibility, but it seems like you finish the book with no concrete answers. Her conclusion seems to be that anything could happen and you should pay attention to your kid.....well....yes. Obviously. 

This book is also needlessly pessimistic. While it's true that many children have difficulty adjusting to a new sibling, parents don't need to feel like having that second child will be the end of any peace or happiness in the house.

Verdict: Skip 

This book is equal parts about deciding when to have a second child and helping your first child deal with the change. As someone who was already expecting, I found myself skimming several chapters of this book. My favorite piece of advice from this book was to sometimes attend to your older child first and say, "Hold on Baby, right now I'm helping big brother or big sister." This will help soften all of the times you have to tell your child to wait while you feed or change or comfort the baby.

Verdict: Pick this one up if you are thinking about having baby #2. If said decision can already be seen via ultrasound, you can skip this book.

Sometimes you need a little refresher course, even if you are already a parent. In my case, it has been five years since I've cared for an infant. This is an excellent guide to the first few months of parenthood. The authors are parents and pediatricians, so they can relate to being a new mother who worries that their baby is really sick but balance it with the wisdom of medical training. The book is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and has an easily accessible table of contents so you can just find a quick answer about spit-up or colic. The authors seem like they could be friends with older children who stopped by for a cup of coffee and to answer a few questions for a newbie mom or dad.

Verdict: Pick it up! 

This is my favorite of all the pregnancy/baby books this time around. But it's not for me. This book is all for the big brother. It starts during pregnancy, relating what it was like for mom to be pregnant with child #1 and asking the big brother or sister what they want the new baby to know. There's an interview to be given right after the big sibling meets the baby for the first time and then it proceeds through the first year together with the milestones of both infant and child. This book is funny and creative and has a ton of activities for the big sibling, so they feel like a brilliant and much-needed tour guide for this little thing known as their family.

Verdict: Pick it up - the kids (and you) will have a blast! 

What pregnancy/baby books did you find helpful?

It's Monday - How are you??

Hello book people! How are you doing?

This has been quite a week around here. I am definitely feeling some third trimester exhaustion but I'm learning to balance getting things done around here and making sure I have time to rest. In more exciting news, both of my sisters were home from college so we had a great time hanging out on Saturday. David also had a brief but glorious career as as TV star when a local news channel interviewed him on Friday as he played in the snow. He also lost his first tooth today, so we are having quite an exciting weekend.

How was your week? Did you read anything good?


Read This Week:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette
By Maria Semple


The Happiness Project
By Gretchen Rubin


Parlor Games
By Maryka Biaggio


Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
February Wrap-Up
Reviews of Seraphina and The Magician King 


Reading Now:

The Pelican Brief
By John Grisham

Up Next:

The Madonnas of Echo Park
By Brando Skyhorse


What are you reading this week?

Review: The Magician King

The Magician King

By Lev Grossman

Viking Press 2011

400 pages

From the library

Spoiler Alert: There is actually no way to discuss this book without spoilers. If you haven't read The Magicians, I'm about to tell you everything....

In this sequel to The Magicians, Quentin and his friends seem to have found some sort of peace. Their days are filled with a sort of meandering nothing that is expected of the kings and queens of Fillory. But Quentin finds himself ever unsatisfied, wondering if there is something between the mind-numbing boredom of being the ruler of a peaceful kingdom and the violent havoc that is a result of a kingdom at war. When he hears of a small island that hasn't paid their taxes for years, he decides to embark on a quest to find out why. His quest, like all quests, becomes much more complicated and adventure-filled than Quentin could have ever imagined.

While Quentin begins as the narrator of this story, it mostly belongs to Julia - the dark, unstable queen of Fillory who was denied entrance to Brakebills, the prestigious magic school that shaped Quentin and the other rulers. Through this book, we discover how she learned magic and visit the shadowy corners of the world where magic is unregulated. There is some real tension throughout between Quentin, who basically had things handed to him as a result of his upper class education, and Julia, who had to fight for everything that she got, usually under terrible circumstances. While Quentin has had to deal with some tough stuff, Julia is forever the "other" - the one who didn't make it into the posh school, doesn't have the mentors or connections, and who looks at life through all of the baggage she carries with her. As with The Magicians, there are a lot of parallels to be drawn to our own lives, despite the lack of magic in our world. 

I appreciated that Quentin seemed to mature from the previous book to this one. He is still somewhat selfish, but we can see a new side of him where he truly thinks about the feelings of others. While he is still trying to figure out what he wants from life and what will make him happy, he is less whiny and seems to have realized that he is not the only one who has problems in life. He serves as a good foil to Julia's character as the narrative switches between their present and Julia's past. In the present, Julia is difficult to like or understand. She holds herself at such a distance from the reader and the other characters. But as we read more of her back story, her bizarre behavior starts to make sense. 

The Magician King still gives plenty of love to your favorite fantasy series, including Lord of the Rings and Narnia.  In fact, the opening scene when the kings and queens go on a hunt is extremely reminiscent of the Pevensie children looking for that white stag. Oh, and then they go on a quest to find an island - can we say Voyage of the Dawn Treader? But Fillory is a much different world from Narnia and this book is worlds away from C.S. Lewis' series. The Magician King is delightfully dark. Grossman makes humor dark and can make the darkest plot points funny. 

"Quentin had an obsolete sailing ship that had been raised from the dead. He had a psychotically effective swordsman and an enigmatic witch-queen. It wasn't the Fellowship of the Ring, but then again he wasn't trying to save the world from Sauron, he was attempting to perform a tax audit on a bunch of hick islanders. It would definitely do."

The Magician King is a dark and funny re-imagining of the fantasy stories you loved as a child. Grossman builds upon his magical world with lots of unexpected twists and turns. If you enjoyed The Magicians, you won't want to miss engaging tale.


You can read my review of The Magicians here. The third book, The Magician's Land should be out in early 2014.

Review: Seraphina

Seraphina

By Rachel Hartman

Random House 2012

451 pages

From the library 

Seraphina Dombegh is a court musician in the kingdom of Goredd. The land has been at peace for years, ever since a tentative peace was brokered between humans and dragons. As the anniversary of the treaty draws close, dragons begin to arrive to the court in human form to attend the celebration. When a member of the royal family is murdered, seemingly by a dragon, no one at court is above suspicion. Seraphina has a secret reason for wanting this mystery solved and begins assisting Prince Lucian in the investigation. Will her involvement in this court catastrophe reveal her own hidden origins?

As you know if you often read this blog, I approach YA novels with a certain amount of trepidation. But I'm trying to move past that. When I heard that this story was set in a fictional past and that its heroine is a musician, I thought this might be one I could get into. As it turned out, I really enjoyed this book. 

Seraphina is slated to have a sequel published next year and I think Hartman has created a world and a group of characters who are deserving of multiple books. While this is an imagined world with imaginary conflicts between dragons and people, there are obviously a lot of parallels to be drawn about those who have power and a sense of belonging and those who are on the outside. In Seraphina's world, dragons are outcasts who are forced to wear bells around the neck when in human form so that everyone can avoid them. Despite their great power, they are the lowest members of society. 

Seraphina herself is a really compelling character. She is guarded with other people because she doesn't know who she can trust, but she is also incredibly resilient and layered. While I liked her a lot, she often struck me as very mature for her age. We are told she is 16, but she thinks and acts much older than that. She has a great deal of responsibility, as someone who is responsible for instructing musicians and organizing music for the entire kingdom. She also has a firmly established sense of morality for a teenager and has the ability to really empathize with others and consider their feelings and reactions. It's a wonderful change from the typical self-centered teenage heroine.

I also really appreciated the romantic aspect of this story. It's easy to tell, fairly early in the story, that Seraphina will begin a romance of some sort with a certain character. But it's not the crux of the book. It's a slow build and the story is more about Seraphina coming to terms with who she is and how she navigates her world than about her feelings for the other character. Seraphina's experiences could stand without a love interest, but having one certainly adds some tension to the story.

Rachel Hartman's Seraphina is a perfect book for immersing yourself in another world. It's a fantasy world with rich characters and a fast-moving story and a YA book with a protagonist who cares more about self-awareness and the world around her than the cute boy next door. I am glad that I gave this book a try and I look forward to seeing what happens in the sequel. 

February Wrap-Up

Adios, February! I think the few bizarre warm days we have had are making me excited for spring. I feel done with winter and ready for some sunshine and flowers. As for reading, I feel like I have been going back and forth between books I speed through in a day or two and books that seem to take forever to finish. But I feel like I am reading quite a bit, so all is well. 

Books reviewed in February: 9
Pages Read: 3,307
Fiction/Non-fiction: 8/1
Female authors/male authors: 6/3
My books/library books: 5/4
Lindsey's favorite books in February: Year of Wonders and Lost in a Good Book 

Books reviewed with David: 3
David's favorite book in February: Pippi Longstocking


What was your favorite read in February?

Literary Lindsey, David, and three sisters/aunts

It's Monday and it's already March!

So what happened this week? Nothing too exciting - work and chores and a doctor's appointment. It was a good reading week, though. I'm still behind on my Goodreads goal, but I'm trying not to worry too much about it since it's only March. Do you have a Goodreads goal? How are you doing?


Read This Week:


Catch-22
By Joseph Heller


From One Child to Two:
What to Expect, How to Cope, and How to Enjoy Your Growing Family
By Judy Dunn


The Red Garden
By Alice Hoffman

Posts from this Past Week:
It's Monday
Wednesdays with David: Pippi Longstocking 
Reviews of Iscariot, 20 under 40: Stories from the New Yorker, and Catch-22


Reading Now:

Where'd You Go, Bernadette
By Maria Semple

Up Next:

The Happiness Project:
Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets,
Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
By Gretchen Rubin

What are you reading this week?

Review: Catch-22

Catch-22

By Joseph Heller

Dell Publishing 1978

463 pages 

Borrowed from my Dad

Well....this book...it's a doozy. 

I completely understand why so many people abandon this particular novel. It can be downright confusing - we are constantly introduced to new characters who are then abandoned for several chapters and it often seems more like a series of vignettes than a coherent story. There is humor throughout, but it's not a laugh-out-loud sort of humor. Rather, it's consistent absurdity.

At its simplest level, this book is about a bombardier during WWII named Yossarian. He has flown his quota of missions and is ready to go home. But his commander keeps increasing the number of missions, so Yossarian must come up with new and inventive ways to avoid being sent out. He and his friends are stymied by Catch-22: In order for a pilot to be relieved from duty, he must be insane. But the pilot who asks to be released understands that flying so many missions is tantamount to suicide and so he is not insane. 

In spite of almost 500 pages of tangents, ridiculousness, and death...I found myself enjoying this book. Heller has some sort of magic that makes you feel like you can't connect to any of the characters until the sudden moment when you find your heart broken because another pilot has died. The complete dissonance between the hilarity of redundant orders and misunderstandings and the pain and agony of war is incredibly written and hits the characters and the readers at the strangest of moments. This is one of those books you sort of hate while you read it, but feel a great sense of accomplishment when you finish it. 

This is a very strange book. It's hard to read, but unexpectedly worthwhile when you finish it. If you are trying to read this book and tempted to set it aside, stick with it. Under all of the absurdity is a truly tragic story of men who die and men who live, all without being quite sure what it is they are fighting for. After all, isn't war the most absurd thing of all?