Book Round-up

O.K., so I've plowed through several books in recent times--most of them pretty good.  Here are a few, reviewed briefly. (All titles were borrowed from the library.)

1. Jane by April Linder--This is a modern-day (young adult) retelling of Jane Eyre.  Full disclosure: I did not enjoy Jane Eyre when I had to read it for high school.  It was a drag and the relationships (and much of the events) made no sense.  So while Jane is a very good tribute to the original, I wound up not enjoying it for the same reasons I didn't enjoy the original.
But after saying all that, as I have been taking more of an in-depth look at introversion for my own personal insight, it has been said that Jane Eyre (the original character) was an introvert.  Lindner definitely writes that aspect of Jane Moore (the modern-day character) marvelously well.  (I even found myself identifying with some of the things she said she experienced!) Actually, I have to admit that Lindner's wordcraft in general really impressed and pleased me as a reader.
I read this in anticipation of a Twitter Book Club. . . that I wound up missing!  But I don't regret having read it.  I do look forward to reading her future work.  Even if I'm forced to rehash everything I read for high school.


2. The Girl Is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines--I forget where I read about this book and felt compelled to request it from the library.  [Update 07/24/2012: I remembered that Bri reviewed the next installment, The Girl Is Trouble, recently. I honestly didn't remember that as I was reading the book and writing this post, so my apologies if my post notes similar things!] It's pretty well-written YA (definitely for teens and not younger) set during the WWII era.  It was almost like crossing Meet Molly (yes, I had a Molly doll, a major indulgence from my generous parents) with Veronica Mars and making a novel: teen girl with mom gone helps disgraced dad (lost his leg while serving in the military) with his detective agency.  She goes rogue in an attempt to find out what happened to a classmate of hers and discovers a new sense of self, as well as ways to relate to her dad and others, along the way.  Definitely a good novel for mystery lovers.
The only thing that really turned me off at times was the attempt at authenticity sometimes tripped me up: too much lingo, not enough contextual clues.  It seemed gratuitous.  I found myself wishing for a glossary to which I could flip for help sometimes. [07/24/2012: And it appears that Bri enjoyed the things I didn't really like, so. . . that's different tastes for you! The second book does sound a bit more substantial, though.]
 

3. The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright--I read this one on audio.  This is a middle-grade book, so it's not a million CDs long.  And what a wild story it was!  Skilley the cat won't eat mice; he likes cheese.  He manages to get himself a job at a cheese shop and pub--a very odd place where he makes friends with the mice (and particularly the clever Pip) and is studied by pub patron Charles Dickens who comes in to work on his writing, as do several of his contemporaries.
Conflict comes mainly in the feline person of Pinch, a cat with several scores to settle.  It sounds like a story that is too far-fetched, but all the characters are really well-drawn (and oh, the Dickensian names!) and the action flows.  Bonus: Pip is well-read and loves using numerous "fifty cent words," often to Skilley's puzzlement but always for his edification.  I would love to see teachers use this remarkable story to teach vocabulary.
Double bonus: The illustrations are by Barry Moser, whose cat illustrations I recognized because our family loves Telling Time with Big Mama Cat.
It's a great read and would be a really fun travel audiobook, because the production is done with such animation (intelligible British accents included).

It's Book Club Day

I am two discs shy of finishing The Corrections. I might take the book club advice from Date Night (which had only a couple of funny moments to me) and read "the first thirty pages and the last page" of The Thirteenth Tale. My mom said I wasn't missing much and she liked The Corrections more.

The Corrections is, ultimately, an observation of a family whose members are living out the results of some really bad choices. My audio bookmark is at the point where the sister has broken up a family by sleeping with both the wife and the husband. She seems really messed up. But an excellent chef, apparently.

Oh, and the father is very ill and seems to be hallucinating that he is being taunted by an evil piece of poo.

If that's the kind of writing that gets an author acclaimed, I might as well throw away my unfinished efforts and start over.

Anyway, I will be taking my opinions and some book recommendations to the meeting tonight. Angela recommended a few that looked interesting, including a short read which might be very agreeable after this recent doubling-up.

I'll let you know what all goes down. Including whether or not it will be snowing when we finish, as predicted by the current weather forecast!

Book 1, Disc 3

O.K., I'm up to the third disc of The Corrections. I'm starting to get the idea about the theme of corrections.

Disc 2 talked about a proposed drug called "Correct-All" (at least that's how I think it's spelled, and yes, there is some talk about how it sounds like a certain other drug) whose formula originated in a long-ago patented formulation by the patriarch character.

I'd guess I'm about a third of the way through Disc 3, and there's a flashback to when the two now-adult sons were younger, and there's a comment that their desire to throw their arms around their father's legs upon his return from a business trip had been "corrected out of them." Sad.

Now I'm slogging through what I hope is the tail end of the flashback, where the younger son was left at the dinner table all night because he refused to eat his dinner. There's this long crazy equation of the unappealing food with his life, and all I could think was, "Come on! The kid's in first grade!"

This story seems to be growing in sadness the more I wade into it.

Also, I can't wait to bring up the "spouses resent each other" topic with all the married/divorced members in the group.

That oughta be good for at least ten minutes of discussion.

February's Book 1

Due to a miscommunication about January's reading, for our next meeting we are required to have read not one but two books.

The first book--the one some people accidentally read for January--is The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. I remembered reading a review of his latest novel and feeling a bit apprehensive, but book club requirements are book club requirements. (I'm not one of those people who can fake having read a book unless I'm booktalking to a bunch of kids.)

Sometimes I find that if I'm wary of a book, or not willing to devote my full literary attention to it, I borrow it on audio from the library. That's what I did with all three books in the Hunger Games trilogy. I run a Walkman CD player through my car's tape deck and listen as I drive. It's about a half hour to school in the morning, and usually longer to get home, between rush hour and any errands diverting my route home.

That's right: I'm a grown-up who stills likes someone to read to me every once in a while.

It took a long time to get through Disc 1 (of nine) of The Corrections, partly because I had to put the radio on to listen to the news as I traveled in bad weather frequently this past week. Now I'm at the top of Disc 2. The actor (award-winning Dylan Baker) who reads it is very expressive, and while he doesn't make his voice really weird to be the voices of the female characters, he has a way of distinguishing them and their mannerisms that is kind of charming and very entertaining.

So far I don't hate it. It's not really my cup of tea in terms of the frequent talk of disordered things like affairs between professors and students, drug experimentation, and the like as if they are normal, everyday things. (I'll have more to say about that later.) But it's got colorful characters, some of whom I'm starting to like or at least take an interest in, and some neat turns of phrases. The story's getting going.

At least, I think it is.