Little Free Library is a wonderful thing. Is there one in your neighborhood?
Monday, December 15, 2014
Another visit to the Little Free Library
Over Thanksgiving break I was with my family again at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, where I once again stopped by the Little Free Library on the Loop to see what there. I donated my most recent review book, Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich. It's fun to think about who might read it next.
Little Free Library is a wonderful thing. Is there one in your neighborhood?
Little Free Library is a wonderful thing. Is there one in your neighborhood?
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Book Review: Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich
Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel: A Graphic Novel by Anya Ulinich
Published by: Penguin Group USA
Published on: July 29, 2014
Page Count: 368
Genre: fiction, graphic novel
My Reading Format: Paperback provided by the author via NetGalley
Available Formats: Paperback and Kindle ebook
My Review:
Lena Finkle, recently divorced, is navigating a new world. She's raising her two teenage daughters on her own and she's dating for the first time since the Internet was commonplace. She chronicles her dating life in this graphic novel, nicknaming each of the men she dates, as well as her own personal journey to find fulfillment as a mother, author, teacher and significant other. She has a tough go at it. Most of the men don't work out like she hopes, even the one ex-boyfriend who has never quite left her life and with whom she finally may have a chance at love.
Before Lena Finkle, I've never read a graphic novel. Several of my students are interested in them, and this seemed like a fun one to try out first. Not that I didn't enjoy the plot, but I was surprisingly drawn to the pictures and liked the detail involved in each one. Facial expressions, for one, were really useful in telling me more about what a character was thinking a feeling. And, it was fun to have speech bubbles and thought bubbles above a character's head in the same frame. I thought the way Ulinich used a semblance of a journal-like notebook to convey flashbacks and background information was creative and great, as side notes from the forward motion of the plot that made sense visually.
While I can't say I can relate well on a personal level to Lena's life as a single mom, immigrant, author and dater, I enjoyed her story and the way Ulinich chose to tell it.
Three out of five stars
Monday, November 17, 2014
Do the classics get better as we age?
One of my favorite classes in high was (not surprisingly I'm sure) my freshman English class. With Mrs. Reardon I experienced for the first time Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Lady or the Tiger, The Lottery, The Odyssey and countless other important works of literature. One of them, To Kill a Mockingbird, quickly turned into a favorite of mine. In fact, I revisited it again in college and wrote my undergraduate thesis on its critical response.
Near the end of our time in Mrs. Reardon's class she mentioned that she and a fellow teacher had recently discussed whether or not To Kill a Mockingbird was wasted on high school freshmen. Were we really capable of digesting all of the complicated themes and grown-up world ideas as 14 year-olds? Of course we thought we were, and we told her so.
Since that first reading more than 20 years ago, I've read the book several more times, and Mrs. Reardon was right. With more life experience, the book means more to me each time I read it.
Fast forward to last week. With my American Literature class at the homeschool co-op where I teach once a week, we began discussion of Willa Cather's My Antonia. Cather is one of my favorites too. I find her prose lovely. It really makes me want to visit Nebraska and see those rolling prairies for myself (one day).
If you're not familiar with My Antonia, the basics with regard to the point I'm making involve a narrator named Jim looking back on his time growing up on his grandparents' rural Nebraska farm, particularly around a special friend he made, Antonia, who was the oldest daughter of Bohemian immigrants on a nearby farm. There is some question of whether Jim falls in love with Antonia (it makes for good class discussion).
But, years later, Jim is a successful New York City attorney, and his job requires some travel across the country. On one trip out west he arranges to visit his hometown. He's heard bits and pieces from Antonia and about her over the years, but it's been decades since they've seen each other. He borrows a horse and buggy and drives out to the farm where she lives with her now-husband and nearly a dozen children. Antonia is surprised and happy to see him. Jim relishes their time together catching up and meeting her children.
Jim is struck by how time and hard work on the farm have changed her appearance, though her personality has remained very much the same. After their visit, Jim returns back to his life in New York City and his wife.
During our class discussion last week, I had a Mrs. Reardon moment when I almost let slip out of my mouth, "Read this book again right after you've been to your 20th high school reunion!" I thought better of it, both because as homeschoolers they may not ever attend a high school reunion and also because they might have had the same indignant reaction my classmates and I did.
I imagine that, like To Kill a Mockingbird, My Antonia would have not had such a profound effect on me in high school.
Near the end of our time in Mrs. Reardon's class she mentioned that she and a fellow teacher had recently discussed whether or not To Kill a Mockingbird was wasted on high school freshmen. Were we really capable of digesting all of the complicated themes and grown-up world ideas as 14 year-olds? Of course we thought we were, and we told her so.
Since that first reading more than 20 years ago, I've read the book several more times, and Mrs. Reardon was right. With more life experience, the book means more to me each time I read it.
Fast forward to last week. With my American Literature class at the homeschool co-op where I teach once a week, we began discussion of Willa Cather's My Antonia. Cather is one of my favorites too. I find her prose lovely. It really makes me want to visit Nebraska and see those rolling prairies for myself (one day).
If you're not familiar with My Antonia, the basics with regard to the point I'm making involve a narrator named Jim looking back on his time growing up on his grandparents' rural Nebraska farm, particularly around a special friend he made, Antonia, who was the oldest daughter of Bohemian immigrants on a nearby farm. There is some question of whether Jim falls in love with Antonia (it makes for good class discussion).
But, years later, Jim is a successful New York City attorney, and his job requires some travel across the country. On one trip out west he arranges to visit his hometown. He's heard bits and pieces from Antonia and about her over the years, but it's been decades since they've seen each other. He borrows a horse and buggy and drives out to the farm where she lives with her now-husband and nearly a dozen children. Antonia is surprised and happy to see him. Jim relishes their time together catching up and meeting her children.
Jim is struck by how time and hard work on the farm have changed her appearance, though her personality has remained very much the same. After their visit, Jim returns back to his life in New York City and his wife.
During our class discussion last week, I had a Mrs. Reardon moment when I almost let slip out of my mouth, "Read this book again right after you've been to your 20th high school reunion!" I thought better of it, both because as homeschoolers they may not ever attend a high school reunion and also because they might have had the same indignant reaction my classmates and I did.
I imagine that, like To Kill a Mockingbird, My Antonia would have not had such a profound effect on me in high school.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Book Review: Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians by Justin Martin
Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians by Justin Martin
My Review:
Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan was for years where an eclectic but now well-known group of artists and writers gathered to share their ideas with each other. At the center of this group was young poet Walt Whitman. Those who drifted in an out of this group over the next years are others who were making names for themselves: actors Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes Booth, comedian Artemus Ward, drug experimenter Fitz Hugh Ludlow and a scandalous actress named Adah Menken. The group was widely traveled but kept Pfaff's Saloon as a home base, gathering nearly every evening at the same table in the bar.
I read this book shortly before teaching Whitman's poetry to my American literature* class and found Martin's book to be meticulously researched and absolutely fascinating. This book featuring this quirky cast of characters with Whitman at the center really brings the bohemian group of American romantic artists to life. As the book progresses, Martin reveals, layer by layer, the connections this group formed with other notable people of the time. In particular, Martin tells of the very short degree of separation between Whitman and the assassination of the man he admired perhaps more than anyone else: President Abraham Lincoln (and, this connection isn't through John Wilkes Booth but someone else).
Martin's book is no stuffy biography but a book that reads more like a novel and painting a picture in my head of the smoky basement bar and all the debauchery that must have ensued night after night.
It's a fascinating look into a world I knew next to nothing about before reading Rebel Souls, and I'm glad I did.
Published by: Da Capo Press
Published on: September 2, 2014
Page Count: 368
Genre: Biography
My Reading Format: ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley
Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle, Audible
My Review:
Pfaff's Saloon in Manhattan was for years where an eclectic but now well-known group of artists and writers gathered to share their ideas with each other. At the center of this group was young poet Walt Whitman. Those who drifted in an out of this group over the next years are others who were making names for themselves: actors Edwin Booth and his brother John Wilkes Booth, comedian Artemus Ward, drug experimenter Fitz Hugh Ludlow and a scandalous actress named Adah Menken. The group was widely traveled but kept Pfaff's Saloon as a home base, gathering nearly every evening at the same table in the bar.
I read this book shortly before teaching Whitman's poetry to my American literature* class and found Martin's book to be meticulously researched and absolutely fascinating. This book featuring this quirky cast of characters with Whitman at the center really brings the bohemian group of American romantic artists to life. As the book progresses, Martin reveals, layer by layer, the connections this group formed with other notable people of the time. In particular, Martin tells of the very short degree of separation between Whitman and the assassination of the man he admired perhaps more than anyone else: President Abraham Lincoln (and, this connection isn't through John Wilkes Booth but someone else).
Martin's book is no stuffy biography but a book that reads more like a novel and painting a picture in my head of the smoky basement bar and all the debauchery that must have ensued night after night.
It's a fascinating look into a world I knew next to nothing about before reading Rebel Souls, and I'm glad I did.
Four out of five stars
If you liked this book, you’ll like Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen, Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton, John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson, and any of Walt Whitman's poetry.
**Here's what else I included in my syllabus for American literature.
John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson
- See more at: http://betsyrm.blogspot.com/2013/07/book-review-john-wilkes-booth-beyond.html#sthash.N9bf4MMV.dpuf
John Wilkes Booth: Beyond the Grave by W. C. Jameson
- See more at: http://betsyrm.blogspot.com/2013/07/book-review-john-wilkes-booth-beyond.html#sthash.N9bf4MMV.dpuf
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Thoreau's Walking and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
This is my second year I'm teaching American literature to high school sophomores and juniors at a homeschool co-op in Atlanta. We started with Puritan poetry and moved into Transcendentalism, focused on Emerson and Thoreau. Instead of having them read "Walden," to cover Thoreau I chose another essay to read and discuss in class: "Walking."
On the day of our class discussion we took a walk through the community garden outside the community center where our classes are held and had a pretty good discussion about how to enjoy solitude in nature amidst the urban sprawl of Metro Atlanta.
At the same time the book I was reading for fun was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I didn't choose to read the two at the same time on purpose but I liked that it happened that way.
In Joyce's book, Harold Fry is a retired man living in a small town in the southwest corner of England. He and his wife are going through a bit of a tough time in their marriage and Harold is searching for new purpose for his life. Then, a postcard arrives from a former coworker from two decades before. Queenie is in her final days of a battle with cancer and writes Harold to tell him goodbye. Harold struggles to write her back an adequate letter, dashes something off and leaves the house to go mail it. Except he doesn't mail it. He decides to hand-deliver the letter 600 miles away and starts walking.
On his journey Harold meets memorable characters who want to share in the journey with him, receives the support he desires from his wife who's still waiting for him back at home and sorts out things from his past that have been bothering him.
It tied in nicely with Thoreau's ideas that walking to experience nature is how you sort through the tough things in life and figure out how to live your life as an individual.
On the day of our class discussion we took a walk through the community garden outside the community center where our classes are held and had a pretty good discussion about how to enjoy solitude in nature amidst the urban sprawl of Metro Atlanta.
At the same time the book I was reading for fun was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I didn't choose to read the two at the same time on purpose but I liked that it happened that way.
In Joyce's book, Harold Fry is a retired man living in a small town in the southwest corner of England. He and his wife are going through a bit of a tough time in their marriage and Harold is searching for new purpose for his life. Then, a postcard arrives from a former coworker from two decades before. Queenie is in her final days of a battle with cancer and writes Harold to tell him goodbye. Harold struggles to write her back an adequate letter, dashes something off and leaves the house to go mail it. Except he doesn't mail it. He decides to hand-deliver the letter 600 miles away and starts walking.
On his journey Harold meets memorable characters who want to share in the journey with him, receives the support he desires from his wife who's still waiting for him back at home and sorts out things from his past that have been bothering him.
It tied in nicely with Thoreau's ideas that walking to experience nature is how you sort through the tough things in life and figure out how to live your life as an individual.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Book Review: Ruth's Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig
Ruth's Journey: the Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig
Published by: Atria Books
Published on: October 14, 2014
Page Count: 384
Genre: Historical fiction
My Reading Format: ARC ebook for Kindle provided by NetGalley
Available Formats: Hardcover, Kindle ebook, Audible book
This is the life story of Ruth, better known as Mammy, in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. We are first introduced to Ruth when she is a small child in Saint Domingue (modern-day Haiti) during the unrest of the 1820s. Ruth is owned by Solange Escarlette Fornier, the wife of a weathly planter and army captain named Augustin. Like her granddaughter Scarlett is described, Solange is not beautiful but is green-eyed and striking. She longs for the exciting life she left behind in Normandy. Ruth comes into Solange's possession and is an agreeable and self-sufficient child. The three leave for Savannah and Augustin joins the American army. Soon they are immersed in the social life of this busy, diverse city, and Solange is determined to improve the family's social status.
I liked all the similarities between Solange and Scarlett. It was fun to get to know Scarlett's grandmother and much more about her past. I liked learning about Ruth's life outside of her time with the three generations of Scarlett's family. Getting a window in on her own personal journeys and heartaches was interesting and made her a more well-rounded character to me across both novels. I also particularly liked getting the back story on on how Scarlett's parents, Gerald and Ellen end up together.
The narrative point of view changes mid-way through the novel. It begins in the third person, giving us an objective perspective on Solange, Augustin and Ruth. However, Ruth becomes first person narrator later in the book. I enjoyed the well-written, authentic voice of Ruth as an adult and all her opinions on the bustling O'Hara household. I wish McCaig would have told the story in Ruth's voice all along. I think I would have enjoyed Ruth's childlike observations of Solange and the events of her life. The first part of the book would have seemed more personal, and readers would feel, I think, closer to her innermost thoughts and feelings by hearing them from her first-hand. The two points of view are a little jarring. Ruth's first person account is authentic while the third person feels aloof and removed from the action. However, the first time Ruth sounds like the Mammy from Gone With the Wind is more than halfway through the novel. I wish she would have found her voice earlier.
Also, this isn't just the story of Mammy. Much of the book turns away from Mammy in favor of Solange, enough to make me wonder when we were going to get back on track. In fact, Ruth disappears from the story for a time and we know not as much as I'd like to about where she is and what she's doing. It's during this time that Solange takes center stage. When Ruth comes back, her dialect is different, perhaps because she is an older, more self-assured woman, but it was hard to make sense of.
Don't go into this with false expectations, but do enjoy it for its perspective from one of the novel's most powerful characters. Authorized or not, Gone With the Wind is a tough act to follow. I'm not sure any writer, no matter how talented, will ever be able to write the perfect sequel or prequel to this book. That said, I liked some parts of McCaig's book, while other parts of it didn't quite come together.
Two and a half stars out of five
If you liked this book, you’ll like Rhett Butler's People by Daniel McCaig and (obviously!) Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Monday, October 6, 2014
It's Monday. What are you reading?
Here's what I'm reading this week:
In the car on audiobook:
11/22/63 by Stephen King
For review (coming soon):
Ruth's Journey: The Authorized Novel of Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Daniel McCaig (in time for its publication date October 14)
Reading for work:
The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner
"Young Goodman Brown" and "Rappaccini's Daughter," both short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
And reading for fun:
A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar: A Novel by Suzanne Joinson
What are you reading?
This event is hosted by Sheila from Book Journey.
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