World Book Night: The Second Batch

I mentioned in my last update that this has been rather a mixed bag of books I've loved and those I've (umm...) not loved so much, but really I think that's fantastic. These 30 books are meant to start conversations between over one million people. One million people may not want to read my favorite book. Half of those people, maybe even all of those people, may want to read a book that I've loathed. I find that incredibly comforting. Books aren't going anywhere and they are just going to become more and more varied. This is just another reason why I love World Book Night! But for now, let's get on with the show.

Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger was one of the books I just was not looking forward to reading. A book about football, really? 370 pages, seriously? Whose idea was this? And then I read it and it's awesome. This is a book about football like Watership Down is a book about bunnies. Friday Night Lights is about small town America and what keeps people going; football is just the lens through which we view the story. It is also very, very much a book about race - how things have and have not gotten better in this country through the years. And it resonates with people. Obviously. Bissinger's story has made the jump from article to book, to film, to television series. I feel that this book takes a look at the heart of who we are and who we want to be as a nation.

I finally read The Hunger Games, now half of my teenage customers can relax (the other half is still mad that I haven't read Looking for Alaska yet, to which I say I'm getting there!). Does anything really need to be said about this one at this point? It was the most requested of the 30 titles on the World Book Night list. But this I will say, I really enjoyed reading it so much so that I took a break from my WBN marathon to read Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Suzanne Collins does a great job of building a world I can see and feel, and she give her readers characters to care about. I definitely understand why these books took of the way they did.

I really though that Leif Enger's Peace Like a River had a lot of potential. It's a story of a family looking for their older brother who is on the run from the law after murdering two men that attempted to rape his girlfriend and murder his father. A book about family, faith, and honor - that should be for me. Plus the writing is really, really excellent. But then it all played out like a Nicholas Sparks novel, smarmy and over the top. This one was a let down for me.

What is the opposite of a let down? A wonderful surprise? Okay then, Kindred by Octavia Butler was a wonderful surprise. Kindred is a "sci-fi" novel that is also a slave narrative, who knew this could be done? A black woman in the 1970s is inexplicably transported back and forth between her time and 1816. She's forced to live as a slave and the novel brings up all kinds of questions about race and racial identity and history. This book was so good that I read it in one sitting but continued to think about it for days.

The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz was another of the WBN books that had been floating around on my TBR pile. I wasn't really familiar with the plot, but that "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize" sticker gets me every time. Then it turns out to be a Central American multigenerational story, so I could do nothing but love it. Oscar Wao is an epic nerd who just wants to get a girl, then there's his mother who just wanted to be loved, and her father who just wanted to be safe, and the turmoil that was the Dominican Republic and Trujillo. The tone of the novel is all hip New Yorker with immigrant and nerd undertones and I loved it, especially the footnotes that provided (much needed) Dominican history. Plus, I'm a nerd reading about a nerd so I loved all of the pop (and maybe not so pop) culture references.

There's another five books conquered. I'm already looking forward to reading next years batch of books. I wonder when they will announce them?

World Book Night: The First Batch

I've been horribly negligent in my blogging, but I promise you that I've been on top of the reading. I've now conquered 22 of the 30 World Book Night choices. That leaves only 8 to go before the 23rd. Let's go ahead and admit it to each other now, I probably won't finish The Stand by then.

So many of these books have been floating around on my TBR pile for years, but the king among them may have been The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Walls tells the story of her transient upbringing with an artist mother and engineer/drunkard father. It is a story of the wonder of stars as Christmas gifts and the pain of childhood hunger and how one reconciles an entire lifetime of not being "normal." I was so intrigued by this story of unconventional parenting and a basically feral childhood. Walls did not disappoint. This book is a perfect example of what a memoir should be, everything may not be exactly true, but it labors under a greater truth of storytelling (and even catharsis).

As I make my way through this list of books I can't help but consider why each one was chosen. What is it about these books that will bring a nonreader into the fold? So far, I'm still questioning the choice of Marilynne Robinson's Home. It is such a lonely book. I guess that gets to the core of reading as a solitary pursuit, but I wonder if that will serve as a bucket of cold water onto a new reader that would be better off easing into a warm bath. Then again, I am not an evangelist for this book. I'd love to hear from someone that will be passing this one out on the 23rd. I did really enjoy Home. The language is so beautiful that I'm not sure how I wouldn't have. However, I didn't love it. The novel is basically a plotless rumination on loneliness, loss, and expectation, but the beauty of the prose distracted me and kept me from feeling any of those things. I was able to engage with it on an intellectual level but not an emotional one.

Then came Wintergirls. I was jolted from an intellectual reading experience into a purely visceral one. Laurie Halse Anderson's Wintergirls is about two friends with complimentary eating disorders who form a pact to be the skinniest girl in school. That's girl - singular. Each girl in a battle to starve the other. The thing about this book is how real it feels. The main character's voice is so authentic. This could be anyone's story. I am constantly amazed by Anderson, she deals with these real life issues so deftly. She is never judgmental, never talks down to her readers. She seems like the kind of person you could go to with your troubles, which must be way so many kids (and parents! and teachers!) continue to turn to her books.

I must be honest, My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is the book I was least looking forward to. I came at it with my mind already made up, so if it is a book you love, please feel free to disregard my opinion (it is just an opinion after all, and you know what they say about those). My Sister's Keeper is an issues book that nags at me in all the ways a book like Wintergirls doesn't. Many novels deal with issues, it is one of the things that makes us relate to them, but when an issue is used as a plot device I find it bothersome. So, Picoult's novel is about a young girl who want to be medically emancipated from her parents because she is tired of living merely as life support for her terminally ill sister. And it's all just so melodramatic, cliched, manipulative, and predictable.

Oy vey, then there was Blood Work by Michael Connelly. This one's a mystery about a guy hunting down the killer of the woman whose heart he received after a lifesaving transplant. Frankly, you lost me at mystery. I can't handle the violence inherent to the genre. There is a particular scene in this novel that I still cannot get out of my head two months later. Then detective fiction is just so formulaic. Not the book for me, though I see why this made it on the list. Books like this can definitely create readers, it was a pageturner.

That's the end of the first batch. It's really been up and down with these books, which just goes to show you that every reader is different. I'd love to hear from some of you that have read these or may even be distributing them on World Book Night.

World Book Night: Those I've Read

Of the thirty books being dispensed on World Book Night I've only read six. I must say, that makes me a little sad - like maybe my finger isn't on the pulse of the literary world. I am happy to be remedying some of the more glaring holes in my reading repertoire; I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I've never read Maya Angelou and I cannot tell you how many times I've received a shame-filled stare and teenage tut-tutting when I happen to mention that I haven't read "The Hunger Games". Before April 23rd I'll have at least another twenty four holes filled. I'll be posting my responses to the books here as I read them, but first I wanted to talk about about those I've already read.

"A Prayer for Owen Meany" was the first John Irving book I read and since then I have read one of his novels every year. Irving is so wonderful that I can't allow myself to read him all in one go - I'm pacing myself which makes that one book each year all the more glorious.

Owen Meany is God's instrument. His entire life, as sad and difficult as it often is, can be measured up against this statement. Owen was born with quite a few problems. He has a weak heart, a weird voice, and a tiny stature, but none of this will stand in the way of him performing God's Will - not in any way that he knows of I might add. Owen Meany knows his destiny is huge and he has surrendered to it.

John Irving's novels are always heavily plotted, and with this one in particular Owen's martyrdom is what pushes the book forward. However, as is the case with all of Irving's novels, it is what is said and not really what happens that is most important. This is truly a book about
faith and morality.

Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" is one of those novels that has stuck with me, but not in a good way. I read this book a few years ago and while I didn't hate it, I definitely recall much more of what I did not like about it than what I did. I'll start with what I liked though. I liked the way the book opened. You knew that Susie was going to die from the first sentence. I think that's a daring way to begin a novel. The author has to work harder to make the reader care about a character that we know is going to die. Characters can be flat and distant if we know what's coming for them, but Sebold challenged this to good effect. I also really enjoyed Sebold's heaven - she created a beautiful and tragic fantasy. But what I couldn't stand, what my mind is left with, is the ending. I laughed, I rolled my eyes, I lost the goodwill I had for these characters. A bad ending can ruin a good book, and for me that was the case with "The Lovely Bones".

When I read "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" I was awed. Henrietta's story, Rebecca Skloot's research, the scope of the entire incident/book/etc... just floored me. This book altered my worldview. Skloot forces her readers to look at big ethical questions about informed consent and how medical research (or scientific research in general) is done. I actually read this book for the store's bookclub and it was on of the best discussions we've had yet. There are some issues here that are black and white, but on the whole the saga of the Lacks family is difficult to reconcile. The loss of their mother and the facts of poverty are both devastating. The manner in which the medical establishment handled the family and their questions is unfortunate, but what rights do they really have to the HeLa cells? It never occurred to me to think about my appendix and my ownership of it before. Will that appendix still be mine if it's not inside of me? Will it be more 'mine' if it turns out to be profitable and would I be willing to spend the money funding research and testing to determine whether or not it was profitable then mining the legal and medical fields to establish myself in the body parts business in order to profit from my appendix. That's an incredibly simplified version of events, but you can see that even there all of the issues get murky. Rebecca Skloot's book debates this issue and so many others using what happened to Henrietta Lacks and her cells as well as several cases wherein the doctors or research scientists did not have the best interest of their patients at heart. This is also the story of the Lacks family as the personalities that they inject into book humanize the subject matter and allow us to look at the people on the other side of the science.

Finally, "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. I have wanted to write about this book since I read it a year ago, but I just haven't been able to. This is a book that needs to be felt. I really still cannot think of what to tell you about it, even something as simple as a reaction. The book is about WWII, it is narrated by death. It is absolutely gut wrenching and you should read it. That's really all I can leave you with; you should read it.


I've written previously about "Just Kids" and "Little Bee". I look forward to reading the rest of the World Book Night titles and responding to them here.

Review: My Name is Mina by David Almond

Lately I've been reading a lot of middle grade novels and, as is the case with adult novels as well, some are great and others are not-so-great. However, when I get really into a great middle grade book I feel like magic happens. That's what I felt with David Almond's "My Name is Mina" - magic.

Almond's novel is told as Mina's journal and the voice of an odd, intelligent young girl is spot on. Mina is creative and different and interesting so she can't begin her journal with a simple recitation of events, she decides to begin and "let my journal grow just like my mind does, just like a tree or a beast does, just like life does." And what follows is a short time in the life of a really smart, unique and likable character with all of her clever observations and whimsical nonsense. Can I tell you how much I love a healthy appreciation for nonsense? Children are so stifled by standardized testing and systematic rote learning - they need more nonsense!

The book is more than just the reflections of a strange young girl. It's a sort of love letter to the art of being yourself. Mina is not popular in school; neither her teachers nor her peers can understand her. She's interested in nature and William Blake and ideas that are much larger than addition and multiplication. She creatively interprets her assignments though a very personal lens that her teachers can't fathom, which causes significant problems for her in school. Most of the novel is spent as Mina phases between coming to terms with the death of her father, in brilliant wonderment of the natural world, and trying to establish what it is about her that others find so strange. Why would people not want to make up lovely new words and talk about archeopteryx fossils?

What I love about books like "My Name is Mina" is that they speak truth in a relateable way, as when Mina writes, "Weird, how I can feel so frail and tiny sometimes and other times so brave and bold and reckless and free, and ... Does everybody feel the same? When people get grown-up, do they always feel grown-up and sensible and sorted out and ... And do I want to feel grown-up? Do I want to stop feeling ... paradoxical, nonsensical? Do I want to stop being crackers?" Everyone feels weird, everyone feels different and when we come across someone that is truly original (whether in life or fiction) you can't help but root for them. And I'm rooting for Mina and David Almond because their story is simply enjoyable and wonderful.

Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I must say, Erin Morgenstern's "The Night Circus" is a book for a certain kind of reader and that reader is me. Judging from the response this book has been getting and the loads of early buzz that reader is quite a lot of other people as well. I say "a certain kind of reader" because I want to be clear - I am about to gush about this book but I know it is not for everyone. I found the story to be engaging but I was often removed from the plot and much more interested in the incredibly vivid imagery than what went on between the characters.

The novel begins with a single exciting sentence, "the circus arrives without warning." And this circus is a thing of beauty; it is supported by two magicians, Celia and Marco, who are in a competition that is meant to be a duel but never ends up seeming like one. Instead, they begin to compliment each other's enchantments rather than competing against one another. They have been tied together from a very young age as their teachers' most recent pawns in a centuries long battle over magical methodology. Le Cirque Reves is the showplace for this particular duel. Celia and Marco create tents of magical wonder disguised as mechanical illusions, and that is the real heart of the book. When Morgenstern begins describing one of the tents (more and more are added as the story progresses) everything else seems secondary, and by everything I don't merely mean the story at hand I mean life, the universe, and everything. The imagery created in "The Night Circus" is the best kind of escapism ... this world so vividly described is one that I want to belong to.

I feel like my thoughts can best be expressed in a quote by Friedrick Thiessen a character who looked in on the circus from the outside and dedicated himself to it.

I find I think of myself not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to reach the circus. To visit the circus again, if only in their minds, when they are unable to attend it physically. I relay it through printed words on crumpled newsprint, words that they can read again and again, returning to the circus whenever they wish, regardless of time of day or physical location. Transporting them at will. When put that way, it sounds rather like magic, doesn't it?

Morgenstern does for us what her imagined Thiessen did for his readers, she provides us with a way to visit the circus. She gives us this most elegant world of dreams through words. That truly is a type of magic.

I'm sure that we could easily get into a critical discussion about what it all means, as there is plenty here to debate (competitive vs complimentary relationships, form vs chaos, the importance of storytelling and magic, etc) but really this book just begs to be felt. I escaped into it during the long nights of a difficult weekend and had my own dreams of Le Cirque des Reves. I know it sounds cliched to describe a book about magic as enchanting but there it is. "The Night Circus" is absolutely enchanting. It held me under a spell that I did not want to find a way out of.

Review: Dark Water by Laura McNeal

Laura McNeal's "Dark Water" is criminally under-appreciated. It is a novel that will spark discussions among readers and educate them without ever being preachy or pedantic. Plus it's a great story with a tender romance. It was up for the 2010 National Book Award and yet few readers that I know have encountered it. I'm making it my goal to change that - starting now.

Pearl Dewitt is fifteen years old and since her parent's recent divorce she and her mother subsist on the courtesy of her wealthy uncle. They live in a tiny cottage on his avocado farm in southern California. Those scant details represent the momentum of the book; that being the issues most pressing to southern California: migrant workers, water, and fire. "Dark Water" is a reflection of all of these.

Pearl is intrigued by a young immigrant, Amiel, who is alone in town, doesn't speak, and leans on the near side of eccentricity. Amiel is fascinating; he is not downtrodden and sad eyed as the other men who wait at street corners looking for work are. When Amiel begins to work on her uncle's farm, Pearl finds excuses to talk to him, watch him, or simply be near him. It is young love. More infatuation than genuine feeling, but McNeal handles it so deftly that the book never veers into teenage melodrama.

Any relationship between Pearl and Amiel is not only taboo it is outright forbidden. Culturally it just cannot be done. This is a fact that Pearl brazenly ignores but Amiel never forgets. Amiel's resolve is yet another way in which McNeal keeps "Dark Water" from becoming a typical tale of young romance. Through their friendship the true goal of the book is realized. We see a discussion of the working immigrant life in the US. The workers are both desperately needed and ultimately disdained. This is a hugely important topic, and to see it tackled with such grace and wrapped in such a nice prose package is wonderful. I would love to see this novel discussed; especially in a classroom setting.

"Dark Water" approaches the issue of Latin American immigrants from a relatable and humanizing perspective. At one point, as Pearl questions her uncle about the men who work his farm he describes an afternoon spent with one of his picker's children:

I took Esteban's kids up into the tree house because I thought they might like to play in it. And you know what the youngest one said? He looked around with this really serious face and asked, 'Who's going to live here?'

As Pearl's uncle later expresses, it is important to know "why they left." That's what's so great about the novel. Laura McNeal uses all of these elements to tell a story that is interesting on many levels. The drama of love and the danger of the oncoming wildfire serve the purpose of creating a discussion about a difficult modern issue. Yes, this is a teen novel and I think it is one that's important for teens to read. However, I think it is equally important and enjoyable for adult readers as well. "Dark Water" can be read as a different novel by all who approach it, but the questions it asks will create personal discussions and lasting changes.

Why I want to give Just Kids by Patti Smith

On April 23rd I hope to be passing out 20 copies of Patti Smith's memoir, "Just Kids." I feel like World Book Night and this particular book are a perfect pairing. WBN is about finding people with whom to share your passion as is Patti's story.

In the late 1960s, Patti Smith (still just a kid) moved to New York City in order to better understand who she was and who she wanted to be. There she met Robert Mapplethorpe and began a relationship that would transform each of their lives. Patti and Robert each knew that they wanted to create art.

"I understood that what matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of color and graphite scrawled upon the sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within a work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind come a light, life-charged."

Art, any kind of art, is the spark of life.

"Just Kids" is about is the relationship that Patti and Robert shared. How they pushed each other to experiment with their creations. Patti prompting Robert to take his own photographs and Robert in turn prompting her to sing some of her poems. They each found great success through these endeavors and built up communities around themselves dedicated to the importance of art. However, even more than these two people and their art "Just Kids" is about art and passion as a whole. It is about the need to express and the need to experience art. The need to share these experiences.

The gulf of idealism runs deep throughout the book. It makes me wonder about just how much the world has changed. Has the vastness of the internet and our global community killed idealism? The host of snark and the altar of irony have made a mockery of true feeling. Can we be "Just Kids" any longer? Then I realize that all is not lost; the soul of the world is not dead. Books like this are being written. Art is alive in the world and people are gathering in its name. Promoting art and literature and true passion through community involvement is the goal of World Book Night. It starts with the distribution of one million books by passionate givers, but it does not end there. It extends to new conversations, new relationships, and new communities.

At a time when people are saying that book culture is dying and no wants to meet face to face to discuss books here we have fifty thousand individuals who are going out to do just that. World Book Night was established to create new readers, but I know it will do more than that. World Book Night will serve as a shot of adrenaline into literary communities. More people will be going into bookstores, passing books around, and sharing their literary experiences - that's the power of idealism.