Friday, August 30, 2013

Friday, August 30: End of (Sorta) Week One

Just wanted to record my statement: I am done with people who tell me how heretical or radical they are. For some reason, I find that incredibly self-vaunting and conceited. I'm not sure why, but I will say that I am tired of hearing the story that goes, "Well, you know me, I just reared back and told it like it is. . . " or "And, radical that I am, I refused to accept that excuse. . . " or "Of course, you know how I'm so . . . . . " . Maybe it's flattering self-generalizations I am tired of. But I am tired of them! Prompted by some blog reading, not (hooray) by my first contact with the bulk of this next year's students (new 9th graders), my next FOUR years' advisees (also 9th graders) or (most of) the staff for my next academic year. Those three days have been positive but exhausting. Can't imagine what next Friday will feel like, but this Friday fit nicely next to a gin and tonic on the patio. Wish I could've fit in a nap! Relish: My Life in the KitchenRelish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First book from the high school library this year--a fun combo of cookbook, memoir, and graphic novel. A tad disjointed, but, more troublingly, also poorly edited, with way too many grammatical and usage errors (misplaced mods, etc) for a book with little text! Bothers me to see such careless editing. Otherwise, it's an interesting book and I hope to make a few recipes from its pages!

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

August 28: First Day Back and All is Well

Happiness Sold SeparatelyHappiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Good Grief, so when I saw HSS at the library book sale, I scooped it up, and it was an okay read. The characters Winston creates are interesting, but somehow I found the plot disjointed and lacking in power overall. There are a lot of them: the husband and wife, the various lovers, the tree guy, the various lovers' lovers, the kid (who was one of my favorite characters, actually), the friend. . . . and that whole cast o' characters weakened the overall impact of the story. Okay but not stellar.

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Monday, August 26, 2013

August 26: The Days are Waning!

Speaking from Among the Bones (Flavia de Luce, #5 )Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really enjoyed this outing with Flavia in the waning days of my lovely summer vacation. She is less obnoxious and a little more reflective while losing none of her sass. My quibbles are that the solution to the murder (you know there's a murder!) is ridiculously convoluted: I still can't figure out why one character is locked up, and the details she notices and uses to draw her conclusions become mindboggling. Also: WHY IS SHE SO FOND OF HER FATHER? She goes on and on, but he's sullen, selfish, withdrawn, and a terrible parent from start to finish. Surely someone as independent as Flavia could see his shortcomings and expect him to work to mend them.

Still: highly enjoyable!

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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Aug. 22: Taking a Breath!

Well. It's 8:08 a.m.; I am sitting on the futon in the den, helping Nate edit his AP Lit summer reading paper, and planning to spring into action soon to start completing an outline of my AP Lit class for the year. . .  Camilla is at an overnight/tubing/shopping trip, and Lily is sleeping upstairs. Andy is out the door to tutor, and Nate works 5 - 9 tonight. In less than one week, I'll be back to the round of school meetings, with the reality of my new school year on tap.

WOW!

This summer has been an interesting and rich one, as usual--less full of projects and more full of work and reflection that some. I did a lot of school prep and thinking, which is great; I did a lot of reading, which was also great, and I slept a lot as well--what a pleasure! I think one of the biggest pleasures was my evening routine, which wasn't really a routine, but just a conscious sense every evening that I could do whatever I wanted to: watch the Sox, go out for ice cream, knit, read for school, read for pleasure, futz around on the lap top. . . . I may be a routine person, and my school year routine works really well, but I do love the freedom of my summer evenings!

So: a trip to Bangor for school shopping still needs to happen, along with our kayaking trip on Sunday, a lawn party to welcome Camilla and kick off Nate and her senior year, the Blue Hill Fair, and perhaps an AFS mini-golf trip. Ah, such goals.




Wednesday, August 21, 2013

August 21: One More Week!

The Redeemer (Harry Hole, #6)The Redeemer by Jo Nesbø
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jo Nesbo lives in Molde, our exchange daughter's home town, so she brought us a copy of this book. It was an exciting read, with the troubling exception that it really read almost exactly like The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo: a cranky detective character, corruption, winter Scandanavian setting, deviant sexual appetites, torture scenes. . . . Weird. It was a page turner, but I don't think I'll read any more Harry Hole adventures.

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Thursday, August 15, 2013

August 15: And now time speeds up. . .

The Woman WarriorThe Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another "reread for teaching" book. I think I read this in my late high school career and possibly for a class in college, but I remember being really challenged and confused by its narrative structure. What was real? What was fantasy? What was the point?

This time around, I loved it--the various layers of the story were fascinating and absorbing, presenting different realities: some of them familiar to me from my own experience, from stories friends told me, from other stories of assimilation, struggle, and identity; some strange and unsettling. I am really looking forward to using this novel with my AP class this year! I look forward to reading critical essays about it and Kingston's work in general as well.

Highly recommended.

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So much I still want to do, and so many other things I still need to get done. Stunning weather, great people, good work. . . . Je ne regrette rien!

Sunday, August 11, 2013

August 11: Fluff reading during Camilla's arrival!

Ladies' NightLadies' Night by Mary Kay Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A pleasant, fluffy read. . . nothing earth shattering, nothing particularly original but nothing incredibly irritating, either (tho there was a typo: "his facial features taught". Whoops! ). Purportedly a home decorating theme, but really didn't follow through with that enough to make it much fun. Oh well. Not a bad read: tailor made for the statement, "It was okay."

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AND:


Thursday, August 8, 2013

August 8: Updated Review of My Favorite Summer Read, and various other musings.

Well here I am at 9:28 on Thursday morning. It just started raining, after a lovely stretch of spectacular Maine weather: 75 and sunny during the days, then becoming a chilly 50 or so during the clear, lovely nights. The usual August routine of appointments and such has settled in. . . and our big push is getting things decent for Camilla, who arrives on Saturday. She at orientation at UNE in Biddeford now, and Nate and I will depart early on Sat. to get her.

Here's my updated review, done before I send the book to Julie for her reading pleasure. . . .

AmericanahAmericanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I *gobbled* this book down. I want to write a more developed review (I added more stuff below)  when it's not 9:42 pm after a busy day and Shakespeare at the Fort and all, but I loved it. The story is one that takes a unique perspective and experience and opens it up so that it includes the reader. It is gentle with people, allowing them to make mistakes and to change. It's funny and sad, but always hopeful, and it shows that life happens all over the world, celebrating the struggles and the triumphs that people face. I would love to have a chance to talk over it all with Adichie: her strong, clear voice, her willingness to draw positive male and female characters of all races and backgrounds, and her sense of humor make her seem like a person who'd be great to know!

More later. For right now, go buy it. Full price, at your local bookstore. I did, and I don't regret it one bit. This book deserves to be a bestseller!

ETA: Before I send this off for Julie to read, I wanted to tie in a few passages I marked to give a sense of Adichie's way with language. Ifemelu reflects on the kind of books her boyfriend likes: "novels written by young and youngish men and packed with things, a fascinating, confusing accumulation of brans and music and comic books and icons, with emotions skimmed over, and each sentence stylishly aware of its own stylishness. She had read many of them, because he recommended them, but they were like cotton candy that so easily evaporated from her tongue's memory." (12). And then she describes Obinze's mother: "She was pleasant and direct, even warm, but there was a privacy about her, a reluctance to bare herself completely to the world, the same quality as Obinze. She had taught her son the ability to be, even in the middle of a crowd, somehow comfortably inside himself." (69/70) What a vivid way to describe that particular element of certain people--and that element defines Obinze's character and the relationship Ifemelu has with him throughout the novel.

Another thing the novel did was discuss how Americans deal with foreigners, especially those from African countries. Ifemelu comments on the usual response being "Isn't there a war there?" as well as the attitude toward accents and toward non-American names. Having read those sections, I took a deep breath and forced myself to stop skimming the names and thinking, "There's the main character, her name starts with an I" and really figured out how Ifemelu's name was spelled and (probably) pronounced. Adichie doesn't hector, but she presents a clear picture of what it's like to be on the receiving end of such stereotypes and expectations. Also, she creates a character, Ifemelu, who is known for being outspoken, who alters her accent into Americanese and then, deliberately, recaptures her Nigerian style of English when she realizes what she's done. Ifemelu has advantages, has opportunities: she is aware of them and how they enable her to make a life in the US and a life in Nigeria. If we're moving toward a "world is flat" type global identity, Adichie's Americanah and her characters offer a possible model for how that reality could be lived.

Hopeful, humane, articulate, and perceptive, Adichie has created a valuable, arresting novel full of characters I'd love to meet in real life.


I am using my new MacBook Air from school, which has "ipad tendencies" so occasionally a page will change with no warning, etc. Ah well. I will adapt. Talk about 1st world problems!

Lyle is off in Nepal, out of range for a few more weeks. I am sure he's having a great time, but I do confess that I am marking off the days in my head!

Okay. Must sort through a few boxes, do some laundry, vacuum, and then head to the Y before going for my mammogram. . . Ah, what a life I live. I will share a few pics if possible just to lively up this space. Oops. But not from this laptop! Haven't yet transferred my files over. Later, I guess! When You Were MineWhen You Were Mine by Elizabeth Noble
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well, this one started well, but when I finished it, I was really down, and I finally realized that it was because Susanna, the main character, was such a jerk. Really. The copy of this book is all about second chances, but it's more like sixth chances because she keeps being selfish and shallow and demanding. The relationship she's in with Doug is already in trouble, but she refuses to do anything about it, and her passivity makes her much much less sympathetic. When she finally goes away to think about her needs and her life, I was thinking she'd finally grow up and become responsible------- but the doorbell rings, and there's the end of her really coming to terms with her own issues.

SO: the book is written well enough, but the character is frustratingly selfish and immature, and we're asked to sympathize with her which makes for a bad overall reading experience. Some of the plot details, like Rob's wife being deployed to Afghanistan, are updated but tired, trite themes from romance plots goneby. Back to the book sale shelves it goes.

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Sunday, August 4, 2013

August 4: DROP EVERYTHING AND READ AMERICANAH!

AmericanahAmericanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I *gobbled* this book down. I want to write a more developed review when it's not 9:42 pm after a busy day and Shakespeare at the Fort and all, but I loved it. The story is one that takes a unique perspective and experience and opens it up so that it includes the reader. It is gentle with people, allowing them to make mistakes and to change. It's funny and sad, but always hopeful, and it shows that life happens all over the world, celebrating the struggles and the triumphs that people face. I would love to have a chance to talk over it all with Adichie: her strong, clear voice, her willingness to draw positive male and female characters of all races and backgrounds, and her sense of humor make her seem like a person who'd be great to know!

More later. For right now, go buy it. Full price, at your local bookstore. I did, and I don't regret it one bit. This book deserves to be a bestseller!

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Thursday, August 1, 2013

August 1: Gorgeous Start to the Month, but a not-so-good book

Agnes and the HitmanAgnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I do like Jennifer Crusie, and I have liked some of her efforts with Bob Mayer (Don't Look Down, for example). However, Agnes, which I just found at the booksale and thought I'd read before, but haven't, is a decidedly mixed undertaking. There are definite signs of Crusie's general storyline: a cobbled-together, oddball family; strong female characters; a dog; a cooking/eating subtext; her breathy, non-stop style that features long sentences strung together by more conjunctions than my students would approve; sex scenes featuring women who aren't stick thin. However, this novel has a complex betrayal/conspiracy/Mafia/government plot that means the first three chapters are nearly incomprehensible, given Crusie/Agnes's addle-pated delivery and some very unsettling hitman/murder on demand scenes that add a jarring note. More jarring, however, is the scenario of Agnes's murderous rages that have left one fiance with a steel plate in his head and another wounded; a third episode of betrayal leads to her attacking the hitman of the title in a bout a sex that if it had been perpetrated on a woman, would've been unequivocal rape/domestic abuse. I *get* that this is fluff. I *get* that this is a ditzy, wham-bam-thank-you-m'am madcap caper. . . . but it's slightly unsettling, not to say troubling.

This hybrid doesn't work. It was written in 2007, so that gives me hope that she/they matured their style. Back to the library donation bin with Agnes and her hit man!

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