Bookworm

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell

I finally finished this book last night.  I say finally not because it was a tough slog, but because I've been distracted by the baseball playoffs and new episodes of my favorite shows! 

"A secretary in Queens risked her marriage and her sanity and her cats' welfare to cook all 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking -- a book that changed the lives of thousands of servantless American cooks -- all in one year.  The same year she turned thirty.  It was the hardest, bravest, best thing a coward like her ever did, and she wouldn't have done it without Julia." (297)

Vegans and vegetarians should not read this book. Seriously. I eat meat, but definitely don't want to eat a lot of the stuff that is described in this book. I found it entertaining & full of personality, but could have done with many fewer swear words. After a while you want to say, "We get the point." The author reminded me a bit of Heather Armstrong (Dooce) in her storytelling. I admire her tenacity in attempting to cook all of these challenging recipes. I think the book could have used a bit more Julia Child and a little less about the lives of Julie's crazy friends. I'll be interested to see the movie version of Julie & Julia; I can definitely see Meryl Streep as Julia Child (she's such a marvelous chameleon), but I wonder if Amy Adams is too sweet for Julie. (No offense, Julie.)

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I finished reading the intense new Niffenegger novel Her Fearful Symmetry Monday night. The best thing about her work is that she goes all in -- full bore commitment to scenario, characters, etc. and this literary ghost story is no exception.  The setting is a powerful "character" in this book.  The action takes place primarily in a three flat building that borders Highgate Cemetery in London and encompasses the lives of those who exist there, in various degrees of life and death.  All of the characters are trapped by some combination of fear, grief, ill health, history, lifelong habits, inertia, or weakness and must decide whether and how to overcome these barriers.

“Julie & Julia”

". . .has there ever been a romantic comedy in which the climax comes when not one but two women land book deals (instead of Prince Charmings)? Granted, they both already had Prince Charmings, but a lot of the romance in this rom-com had to do with the relationship between a gal and her writing. . ." [Second “Julie & Julia” Post of the Day: The Book Bench : The New Yorker]

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire are the time traveler and the time traveler's wife, respectively. He is a librarian and she is an artist. Their life together is sometimes perfectly happy and normal, except for one thing -- neither of them know when Henry will simply disappear, literally, leaving his clothing in a limp pile. He has a genetic condition which causes him to travel in time, sometimes into the past, sometimes into the future. Just as abruptly, he will travel back to his present.

One device within the text that I found useful was the section header which provides a date plus Henry's and Clare's current ages. In the "present," Henry is eight years older than Clare. When he journeys into the past, he is sometimes an adult when she is a child. Nothing untoward ever happened during those visits, but in less deft hands, this aspect of the story could have had Lolitaesque overtones. I think the author neatly side-stepped them.

If you're not normally a fan of genre fiction, specifically science fiction, don't let that deter you from reading this book. The time traveling is integral to the plot, but the book also stands on its own as a 20th/21st century literary love story.

[Originally posted: 01/14/2004]

Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire are the time traveler and the time traveler's wife, respectively. He is a librarian and she is an artist. Their life together is sometimes perfectly happy and normal, except for one thing -- neither of them know when Henry will simply disappear, literally, leaving his clothing in a limp pile. He has a genetic condition which causes him to travel in time, sometimes into the past, sometimes into the future. Just as abruptly, he will travel back to his present.

One device within the text that I found useful was the section header which provides a date plus Henry's and Clare's current ages. In the "present," Henry is eight years older than Clare. When he journeys into the past, he is sometimes an adult when she is a child. Nothing untoward ever happened during those visits, but in less deft hands, this aspect of the story could have had Lolitaesque overtones. I think the author neatly side-stepped them.

If you're not normally a fan of genre fiction, specifically science fiction, don't let that deter you from reading this book. The time traveling is integral to the plot, but the book also stands on its own as a 20th/21st century literary love story.

[Originally posted: 01/14/2004]

Rushdie’s Stream library & Borges’ Print library

"In Borges’ library, as in the traditional print library, the books sit on the shelf, with no suggestion of their being connected to each other, no sense of movement. Rushdie, on the other hand, imagines a library in which the books flow in a stream — twisting and stretching and weaving in and out of each other." [Seeing the picture » Blog Archive]

Review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

"Gladwell tramples the concept of political correctness by dissecting these questions: Why are people of Asian ethnicity so good at math? Why are so many of the highest flying law firms run by individuals of Jewish heritage? Why are some country’s pilots and airlines more prone to in-flight accidents? The suggested answers are both straight-forward and surprising." [Review of Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell]

Holiday Message from Roy Blount Jr.: Buy Books

"We don't want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let's mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that's just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance! There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they're easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children's books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they'll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books." [The Authors Guild - Holiday Message from Roy Blount Jr.: Buy Books From Your Local Bookstore, Now]

Brief Review of 2 Graphic "Novels"

Review of Blankets by Craig Thompson and American Widow by Alissa Torres can be found here.

Three Writers Retread Old Ground

The Corrections - TIME

"Roth, Updike and Morrison have new novels out this fall, and in each of them they return to a story they first told much earlier in their careers. In The Widows of Eastwick, out Oct. 21, Updike has dreamed up a sequel to his novel of suburban sorcery, The Witches of Eastwick. In Indignation, published in September, Roth retells the story of Portnoy's Complaint, the brilliant, pneumatically obscene book that made him famous. And in A Mercy, due out in November, Morrison--the last American writer to win a Nobel Prize for Literature--tells the story of a mother who loses her daughter to slavery, just as she did in Beloved."

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday

Review of Alexander McCall Smith's newest Isabel Dalhousie mystery here: http://readinginbed.wordpress.com/