Left Bank by Kate Muir

I read a review praising this book and subsequently put my name on the list at the library. Well known Parisian couple – a philosopher and an actress – cope with the disappearance of their child. At least that's what I thought it was about. Oh, and the actress is from Texas. I usually love a good story about a Texas girl who gets her ass out of the country and does well for herself.

That was a very misleading review. The child's disappearance, though a catalyst to the main elements of the novel, isn't nearly as dramatic as one might imagine.

This is the story of a married couple, the husband very involved in being "French" (i.e. carrying on numerous affairs because he considered it to be his obligation as a French intellectual). He's trying desperately to be Sartre. WWJPSD he asks himself anytime he faces doubt. His wife, in his mind, and hers as well for a bit, is nothing more than a lovely trophy. But eventually his wife starts to see how false and shallow her marriage is by seeing how it affects her daughter and gradually she pulls away from her husband and starts to find herself ... and as I'm describing the book I'm realizing that it could have been a great story. But it gets so bogged down with the details. The endless descriptions of the husband's favorite cheese and the nanny's erect nipples under her thin blouse and wife's red shoes against the gravel. I just skimmed through the last of the book because I wanted to find out what happened. But I didn't care enough about the characters to ever really curl up with this book and dive in.

I wanted an escape to Paris, a glimpse into the life of the intelligent and the beautiful, but it read like any other bad marriage in which the husband thinks much more of himself and his desires than those of the people who he is supposed to care about. This could have been a story about a doctor and his socialite, model wife living here in Dallas. It could have taken place anywhere. Paris doesn't have a monopoly on self-absorbed men, women in denial or bad marriages. Don't waste your time with this book.

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Read this book as our second book club selection. I loved this book. It's about a man who spent the first fourteen or so years of his life thinking he was female. But it's about so much more than that.

This book spans three generations of a Greek family that moves to Detroit from Turkey. Within the 500 or so pages of this novel, topics such as culture (the contrasts between the Greek culture and the American culture) and family and gender assumptions (what really makes a person male or female? Biology or psychology, nature versus nurture) and history such as the wars in Greece and Turkey as well as the history of the city of Detroit are all covered extensively. I found this book to be so interesting.

Our book club could have talked about this book forever. That's why I don't feel especially compelled to write much in this review.

I highly recommend this book though.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Two people at work read this book recently and eagerly proclaimed their love for it. It's been on my very long "reading" list for over a year, so I decided to check it out when I saw it on the shelf at the library the other day.

Initially I was put off by the premise of the book. I'm not a big fan of stories about children. Particularly stories about extremely clever children who think like adults. But I got over that fairly quickly and began to like the book quite a bit. I found the character of Oskar, with all his rambling thoughts and fears and inventions to be endearing. But as much I adored the passages about Oskar, I abhorred the storyline about the grandfather. It was so absurd, and stupid. I realize it was supposed to be quirky or surreal or something like that -- he can't speak because he's too sad, he gradually lost his words and now he carries around daybooks and writes all the time, he remembers a house made of walls of books, to look outside you removed books to create windows, cute, right? Groan. I felt like it clashed horribly with the story of Oskar.

Oskar's dad died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. After his death, Oskar found a key and then decided to try to find the lock that the key would open in hopes of learning more about his father. A significant part of the story is about Oskar's quest as he travels through New York and the five boroughs seeking the lock for this key.

Oskar's observations and contemplations provide some truly beautiful passages of loss and regret and fear. I think anyone, any age can relate to his loss of innocence and his desires.

And the passage that captivated me, the part I had to keep re-reading:

We need much bigger pockets, I thought as I lay in bed, counting off the seven minutes that it takes a normal person to fall asleep. We need enormous pockets, pockets big enough for our families, and our friends, and even the people who aren't on our lists, people we've never met but still want to protect. We need pockets for boroughs and for cities, a pocket that could hold the universe.

Eight minutes thirty-two seconds...

But I knew that there couldn't be pockets that enormous. In the end, everyone loses everyone. There was no invention to get around that...

It reminded me of how I feel every time I hear about some tragedy in the world and wish that I could have my friends all right next to me rather than wonder where they are at that moment. Suffice it to say, I loved parts of this book.

But then you have to go back to the daybook entries of his grandfather who abandoneded his grandmother before his father was even born. He's just so very sad and he left because he was scared to love anyone and didn't want to love the baby. But 40 years later, after learning the son he never wanted to know is dead, he returns, and he's so very sorry. Talk about too little way too late. I despised this character so much, I couldn't get past my distain for him. I suspect that's the sign of good writing if someone can conjure up such strong feelings. But I felt like that wasn't the intended response, instead I was supposed to feel sorry for him, because you know, he's just so sad and he'd lost so much. As I'm reading this though I'm thinking of all the people around him who have lost just as much, who are going on with their lives as best they can and I think he is a pathetic worthless man who doesn't deserve the forgiveness of the family he abandoned. He walked out on a pregnant wife because he never quite got over the death of a pregnant girlfriend and he felt completely justified in his actions, never bothering to consider what his actions would do to his wife -- his wife, who had lost her entire family in the same fire that took the life of his girlfriend. I have no sympathy for people so absorbed in their own pain that they treat those who depend on them so horribly. He returns wanting forgiveness, wanting to know all about the son he didn't want, wanting to become a part of his grandson's life.

Had that storyline been eliminated from this story, I would have liked this book much more than I did. To me it felt like two stories, and when the two storylines do interact, it doesn't seem to play a significant role in the story, point being, had it been left out, it would not have detracted from the main story.

Another thing that bothered me was the formatting of the book. I was annoyed by the blank pages or pages with one sentence. I was distracted by the pages covered with red ink and I didn't think the photos contributed much to the story.

Overall though, I'm glad I read the book.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I re-read Wuthering Heights recently. At work I learned that most people in the office had never read the book, so I suggested we start a book club and this be our first book.

As expected, it broke my heart again. I never know what to expect when I re-visit books from my past. When I re-read One Hundred Years of Solitude, I discovered I no longer loved the book. When I went back to Bell Jar, I discovered it meant more to me that it could have ever meant when I was a teenager. With Wuthering Heights though, I loved it just as much as I remembered loving it.

So much passion and desperation, and so much loss. I found myself hesitant to read it though, I kept stopping not wanting to go further because I knew that the situation would only get worse.

Now, almost fifteen years after the first reading, the story still resonates with me. Not because I've ever experienced anything anything like that, but rather because of my lack of passion in relationships. As a teenager I found myself longing for a feeling that intense, assuming it would be in my future. Now as an adult, I find myself facing that awareness that I'll never feel that. It's another sort of fear, my hope has become loss. What if you never find your soul mate? Do you settle for someone less or do you spend the rest of your life alone?

I've always joked that the book ruined me. Too often I find myself in boring, passionless situations which I then quickly end. I'm not happy in relationships because I'm waiting for my Heathcliff. Heathcliff, after all these years, remains as dark and intense as ever... always waiting for my Heathcliff...

my contribution for my book club:
http://prn-da-book-club.blogspot.com/2006/08/why-i-like-wuthering-heights.html

Digging to America by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler is one of my favorite writers. I enjoy the way she can tell stories about ordinary people and uncover the pieces of their lives that make them special and unique. It's the idea that everyone has a story and no one's life is as it seems from outside appearances.

This novel is about two very different families that adopt children from Korea. They meet at the airport on the day their babies arrive. Over time the two families become friends, realizing that they share something that not many others share.

I liked this book because it's about the idea of family, and mostly the idea of family being about the connections you make, and not necessarily the connects into which you are born. While initially this story is about adopting children, it expands into "adopting" brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and grandparents.

This book also is about struggling with ideas of perception, self-perception, as well as concerns about the way in which others view you. What am I supposed to be? Who do I want to be? I especially loved the character of MaryAnn -- the grandmother who moved to the U.S. from Iran as a young bride. She struggles with her ideas of how she should live. Her pride won't allow her to take steps to alleviate her loneliness because it would go against the image of herself that she is trying to preserve. Her ideas seem rooted in her culture, but upon reading it becomes apparant that most of these feelings transcend through cultures. In the end we're all much more alike than we realize.

This is a nice book that provides a glimpse of a world in which the idea of family does actually mean something more than unpleasant holidays and shouting matches.

Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper

I heard about this book while watching an episode of Oprah. She had Anderson Cooper and his mother on as guests.

This is a fairly short book. A very quick read. Cooper provides small bits and pieces about his family life as well as his observations about news events he has covered. He tries to explain the connections between his need to travel around the world and witness tragedy and the tragedies that happened in his own family.

It's an interesting book. But it doesn't contain anything shocking or revealing. But if you want to know a bit more about Anderson Cooper, this is a place to start. It won't take up much of your time.

The Minotaur by Barbara Vine

Barbara Vine is one of my favorite writers. I have about three modern writers that I'll read anything they write, Barbara Vine (who also writes as Ruth Rendell), is one of them, the other two being P.D. James and Minette Walters.

This book was not one of my favorites though. I enjoyed it well enough, but I didn't love it.

The story is told by someone who is reflecting back on an event in her life. She's telling a story about a situation that she observed, something that was happening around her, but something that did not directly involve her. She was hired as a nurse for a family to care for their adult son. During her stay, she learns many disturbing family secrets and witnesses many strange events, leading ultimately to a tragedy.

But the story doesn't leave much of a impact. I felt no urgency to finish the book. It didn't arouse any intense feelings, no anger or suspense or fear. It does paint an interesting portrait of rural English life, as do many of her books. I felt like there was too much distance between the narration and the action of the story. Readers were never allowed inside the heads of the people actually involved, so you're left to assumption and speculation along with the narrator.

If you're looking for a good suspense, thriller though, there are several others that I would recommend over this. Two of my favorite Barbara Vine books are No Night is Too Long and Dark-Adapted Eye. I highly recommend both of those. This one, though, not so much.

The Forgetting Room by Nick Bantock

I read this book after I went to Spain. The events in this book take place in Ronda and feature a bridge which I saw on my trip.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, mostly because it's about painting. The Forgetting Room is the room where the narrator and his grandfather before him would enter to become absorbed in their art. Painting is used as a form of escape. I think anyone who paints can relate to the feeling. I forget sometimes how much I love painting, and after reading this book I was reminded of how much I love falling into a painting. It's never about the finished product, but rather the process of creating the work.

This is a nice book, complete with some beautiful illustrations.

Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

I was intrigued by this book because of the use of graphic art -- "comic book" art -- within the novel. I'm something of a comic book fan. But 26 pages into this book, I have decided to stop reading it. After reading a scene in which a fourteen year old girl goes to the school bathroom and tries to slit her wrists with a broken makeup compact, I've decided this book is not for me. The girl is just soooo depressed because her boyfriend broke up with her. She's fourteen! Granted I probably have no sympathy for the situation because I was never a normal teenager, I was always more interested in literature and art and music and sports than in the boys in my school. I dreamed of movie stars and bad boy rockers. I never longed for the smelly kid sitting next to me in study hall.

I couldn't get any further into the book because reading that particular scene sent my mind reeling with angry thoughts. I couldn't focus on the story anymore. What kind of upbringing did this child have that she thinks a boy is worth so much tragedy? How pathetic and empty is her life that she thinks everything is over because of a boy? The beginning of the novel talks about how wonderful her father was at being a stay at home dad, but something was off with this kid. I'm simply not interested in reading this kind of melodrama.

There are so many books I want to read right now, I'm not wasting any more time with this one.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I picked up a copy of the book at Half-Price Books during one of their big extra 20% sales, but it was another year or so before I got around to reading it. I included this on my reading list at beginning of the year.

When I packed for my week in Spain, I took several books, this being one of them. I decided on this book because on the plane from Dallas to London, I noticed that the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, was being shown on the return flight. I wanted to have this read before I watched the movie.

This is the story of a young woman, trained to be a geisha. This tells the story of her experiences and the rituals involved in the world of geishas. This is fascinating in that it describes an experience so foreign to most of us. These women, they traveled on this path as a means to arrive at a better life in a society that provided women limited opportunities. They lived in luxury that would have not been available to them otherwise. However, still their lives were completely dictated by the actions and desires of the men they served.

A scene is described in which the woman, years later, is introduced in New York as a former geisha. She said she can tell she's looked at oddly, and can tell that she is being reagarded as a prostitute. But she so accurately points out, were her actions so different than the wealthy wife judging her? The geisha's actions are more formal and precise, the intent more obvious, but so many women follow a similar path. They paint their faces, dress a certain way, act a certain way, all in their attempts to gain the company and adoration of certain men, men with money and prestige, men who will care for them.

Despite the cover quite clearly stating that this book is a "novel" I read the entire thing under the assumption that it was supposed to be a true story. My own fault, I wasn't paying attention to the cover, I was thrown by the use of the word "memoir" in the title. Upon completing the book, I read the pages following the end, the pages explaining the character in the story is entirely made up.

While I found the description of the lifestyle to be interesting, the "love affair" in the book seemed to detract from the story. It wasn't very believable, which makes sense now that I know the story is fiction.

Ovarall though, it's an enjoyable book, especially if you like stories about different cultures and experiences.

Effects of Light by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

This book intrigued me partly because it seemed to be very much about art and people involved in the art world.

Here's the basic premise of the story: The two daughters of a college art professor posed nude on a regular basis for their father’s photographer friend, Ruth. After the photos are displayed in a well-known gallery, and gain national attention as a result of the subject matter, the youngest daughter is kidnapped and killed. This is assumed to be connected to the photos. The older daughter becomes angry and leaves. Changes her name, cuts off all contact with her past. Years later, she receives a letter saying she needs to return home to retrieve a package. So she drops everything and returns to Washington state and reconnects with her past. She stays with family friends, and tries to decipher her father's notes about art -- a "ground-breaking" book on which he spent his life working. In her quest for information, she also uncovers several family secrets and love triangles involving her parents and tries to make peace with the loss of her sister and father, who had a fatal heart attack after his daughter's murder.

The present story follows the older daughter, while their past is revealed through first person flashbacks belonging to the younger daughter.

I thought I would enjoy reading about people who view art as a central point of their lives. But instead, reading this book made me aware of what I don't like about people who take art too seriously.

In the novel, the photos, when displayed created a great deal of controversy. People were offended by the use of children in nude photos. When describing this, the book takes a decidedly pro-photos stance. Then, through the characters dialogue, proceeds to explain why people were wrong to be offended, why the photos were not offensive, but rather "beautiful". The children in the book insist that they wanted to do the photos, this was their choice. This goes on for pages, the small child insisting that she loves the photos, they're a huge part to her life, a part of her life that she treasures. But as I read this, I kept thinking, you're only five (or whatever too young age she was)! How does a five year old know what she wants? At that age, children just want to make people happy. The father and photographer discuss at length how wonderful it is that the photos chronicle the children's growth, they show the transformation from a child to a young woman (in the case of the older daughter).

Their defense of the photos is presented in such a way to indicate that anyone who didn't agree with them was simply not intelligent enough to fully understand the importance of art.

Essentially, the book angered me. I do understand art. I appreciate art. I even appreciate different, unusual and controversial art. But I don't think that children should ever be exploited for the purpose of art. As I read this book, regardless of how the photo sessions or photographs were described, I felt like the children were being used as nothing more than props for the photographer and then convinced that they wanted to be objectified. This made me think of the ways in which abuse victims are convinced that they somehow enjoyed or provoked the abuse, when in fact they are too young to know otherwise. The father seemed to be so involved in his theories on art that he was oblivious as to what was happening to his children. As long as they were experiencing "art", nothing else mattered to him.

Another scene that bothered me: the older daughter, as an adult, is confronting her boyfriend, claiming he doesn't really know her and so she's going to show him her real self. To do this, she strips in front of him and and has some bizarre breakdown of sorts, pointing to her naked body shouting "this is me." Her actions seemed to support my belief that by being a prop in photographs, she now views herself as nothing more than a body. It was an uncomfortable scene to read and I almost stopped right there. But I stuck with it until the end, because I was near the end at that point.

I didn't enjoy this book. I don't recommend reading it at all.

Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Magical Thinking, as used in the title of this book, is the idea that your internal thoughts have some sort of control on the outside world. In this case, it was Didion believing that she had to keep her husband’s shoes because he would need them when he came back, after dying at the dinner table of a heart attack.

This book, as most people know, is about the year after Didion’s husband’s death. It is very much about the difficulty of suddenly and unexpectedly losing someone who has always been there. Everything was fine one moment and the next it was over.

Didion does an excellent job of describing the suddenness and the extreme feeling of loss. This is very well written. When I started reading this, I had difficulty putting it down because as absurd as this sounds, I felt as if I was leaving her alone if I stopped reading. And her experience was so awful, I didn’t want to leave her alone. Yet that is what this book is about, being alone for the first time in 40 years.

She describes her marriage as different from the typical marriage. She and her husband were friends and co-workers and they talked to each other in ways that families do not seem to communicate. Maybe this is the trick to being married for so long – not adhering to the stupid ideas society present about marriage – wife stays home and keeps house, husband goes off to the office. Didion and her husband seemed to have a collaboration that worked very well for them. They traveled to places all over the world and they sat down at home and “planned.”
On top of the loss of her husband, the year after his death, she is also dealing with the illness of her daughter, who I believe died after this book was published. This is a sad book, but also, I feel like it is a valuable book. The book provides insight to the process of grief and mourning. It also presents a story of what must have been a happy marriage and loving family, and because of that, I enjoyed reading this.

Myth of You and Me by Leah Stewart

I picked up this book because of the title. Silly fact about me – "Myth" is one of my favorite words. I throw it out whenever possible. So the title sounded all dark and mystical. I tend to be much more interested in stories about friendships than romantic relationships and I knew this was a story about friendship. That's all I knew about it.

I didn't realize until I started reading it that it was about a thirty year old looking back on her life -- Someone who didn't feel comfortable in her current setting, someone who was always wanting to run. Suffice it to say instantly I felt a connection with the main character. Also, as I read more of the book, I found it startling that it was about girls growing up in the Southwest and the after effects of living with an abusive mother. Seldom are these situations written about in a realistic manner. There were so many elements in this book that felt like they could have been passages from my life, from driving the west Texas roads to spending your best college days in the newsroom.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I liked the way it explored the depths of friendships, the hold a friend can have over you, the way one’s betrayal can damage you. At what point do you walk away? What do you forgive? And who are you really hurting, what do you have to gain when you do decide it is time to end a friendship?

This is a really nice book. While I've never experienced any sort of situation like the one mentioned in the book, I, like anyone who has ever had a strong friendship, can certainly relate to the themes of holding on and letting go and choosing to forgive or forget.

My only issue with this book was what was an attempt at suspense. What is the package Camaron is taking to Sonia? I suggest you not focus too much on that. It is interesting, but it isn't nearly as important as the buildup presents it to be. The true value of the book is the small details that make the intensity of the friendship feel true.

Are Men Necessary? by Maureen Dowd

I think Maureen Dowd is pretty darn brilliant. She's so very, very smart and funny and really knows what is going on in the world.

Sometimes the universe places in your hands exactly what you need. I bought this book using a gift card someone gave me for my 30th birthday. Talk about being knocked on my ass. That's a rough birthday. This book though did quite a bit in helping me get back on my feet. I didn't get around to reading this book until the Christmas holidays. It was exactly what I needed as I faced my annual holiday depression.

I've hit this age where all of my friend are now tending to their children and husbands and I don't really have anyone to go out with and go places and such. I don't have any interest in the husband and children thing. None at all. I don't say that as a defense mechanism, but simply as fact. I've never understood the allure of it all. I like not being dependent on others. I like making decisions that affect only me. Sometimes though, I don't like being alone. Doesn't mean I want a man, sometimes just a friend who has time to sit and talk would be nice. That rambling there, it is sort of related to some of the ideas expressed in this book. Not to mention that reading this book felt like having a nice conversation with a like-minded girl-friend.

Much of this book is a reflection of Dowd's disappointment over what seems to be the death of feminism. What the hell happened? Now all these women are doing anything and everything possible to acquire a man, to be a wife and a mommy and that seems to be all that matters. Those of us not interested in those things, we're left standing on the side feeling very awkward and confused. What's wrong with us? Why don't we want that stuff?

One of my many dreams, when I was young and naive and had never set foot outside of a small town and still believed dreams were attainable, was to be a columnist. I thought at the time that I actually had things to say that people would want to read. But now that the real world has beat me down, I've become aware of the fact that there are people signifcantly more talented than me saying the things I would like to say, but in much more readable ways.

So when I'm reading Dowd's work, I'm thinking, "exactly, that's just how I feel." Of course, there is no way I could write those thoughts and ideas in such a way. But it is nice to be able to read them.

That's actually another subject on which Dowd touches. Men tend to go after whatever they want, without regard to whether they will fail or succeed. Almost as if they assume they will always suceed and if they don't, they just keep trying. A woman (in general, of course this doesn't apply to everyone) on the other hand, she waits, and waits and waits until she knows she will suceed. In essence she doesn't take chances and probably misses out on a lot of opportunities. I saw myself in this. I don't try things unless I know I'll succeed. Being that I can't see into the future, and very few things provide guaranteed results... We won't even talk about all my missed opportunities.

Overall, though, I felt the underlying message of the book was that men are not essential to a woman's life. Women are quite capable of managing on their own. We don't need men to take care of us, and we don't need men to dictate the ways in which we take care of ourselves and our surroundings. They seem to cause a lot of trouble. In the end, what made me feel a whole lot better about reading this is that I realized, or rather, I had my beliefs re-confirmed that it is very much okay to be single and essentially alone. This whole "finding a man thing" is way overhyped. Simply a product of marketing. There are many other things in life to which I can direct my focus that do not involve men or "hooking up" with men.

I think all women, single ones especially, and probably a few men, would benefit from reading this book.

Read during the week of Christmas, finished on Jan. 1, 2006.

Made in Detroit by Paul Clemens

This book got great reviews. I was under the impression that this was a book about Detroit, and thought it might be interesting.

But I didn't like this book at all. Not one bit. I felt angry reading it. It was a short book, but took me forever to read and I found myself bitching about it to anyone who made the mistake of asking what I was reading. Several people were like, "just stop reading it if you hate it so much."

It was this long, rambling whine about how difficult it was to be a white boy attending private school in a city where whites were the minority. It felt like he just wrote and wrote trying to justify his racist views. He said his girlfriend was raped by a "black" man and therefore he felt justified in being angry that his sister was dating a "black" man. It made no sense to me. Maybe that's because I'm not "white" or a member or any one race, and therefore have never understood how people can justify their racist ideas.

All this time I believed that racism was a southern thing and that people "up north" were more intelligent with regard to race relations. This book proved me wrong. If anything, I learned that from this book.

Some reviews have described the work as "stream of consciousness." But it just seemed like a lack of editing and no real focus to me. I guess what angered me most was the idea that this kind of writing is being published. I didn't find it at all interesting. Nothing especially exciting happened in this person's life. I didn't understand what the actual story was. The author seems to have some real issues he needs to deal with.

Mostly though, I didn't feel like I learned anything about the city of Detroit or the people of Detroit. I don't feel like the author, someone who attended a private school and moved away for college, served as a true representation of a citizen of Detroit. Again, this is just my limited opinion. I really wish I'd not read this book. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead by Christine Wicker

I was reading this book on Halloween weekend, on a plane to New York at 7pm. I'd not bothered to put on any makeup, I'd been at work that day since 6:30 a.m., my hair was pulled up on top of my head, messy, an upside down ponytail of sorts. My nails were painted black, my pentagram ring in its usual location on my left ring finger, and I was wearing a t-shirt advertising a "Transylvanian blood drive." The woman sitting next to me glanced at me uneasily and I became aware of how frightening I must have looked. I never think about my appearance until I see myself through the eyes of others. And I suspect reading about talking to dead people didn't make the sight of me any less disturbing. I felt obligated to say something, make clear that I was somewhat normal and not a complete goth freak. Once we started talking to trip went fine, we talked travel and guys and makeup and hair (she's a beautician). We exchanged phone numbers at the Newark airport.

Back to the book...

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. I liked the way in which it was written. This is written by a former journalist who is basically reporting what she sees, without bias. She points out the discrepancies, the possible hoaxes. But she also points out the unexplainable events, the things that might be a result of a spiritual presences, messages from the dead. During the summer, Lily Dale is the home to registered mediums and people travel there to communicate with the dead with the assistance of these mediums.

The tone of the writing was consistent with my own beliefs regarding spirituality. I often have a difficult time trying to reconcile my uncomfortably, sometimes painfully, rational, practical tendencies with my desire to believe in a realm of this world we can=t understand. I need to believe that there is more than this. I need to believe that we have some control over our destiny, that we can generate good will and fend off negativity. I need to believe that there are forces in this world that can assist in such actions. But I can't accept what is presented to me in the traditional books, the stories of the Bible seem as valid to me as Greek mythology. Stories created to scare people into good behavior and obedience, stories created to explain things that people didn't understand. So I seek out less traditional ideas, more basic, older ideas that can provide results and work with nature and the here and now, ideas that can produce results that I can see or feel, not ideas accepted on blind faith.

I would readily recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the spiritual world and the work of mediums. And now that I've read it, I want very much to visit Lily Dale.

Read: Oct. 30, 2005

From Pieces to Weight: Once Upon a Time in Southside Queens by 50 Cent

I’m a big 50 Cent fan. I know, I know, very irresponsible of me. I’m supposed to be this hardcore militant feminist, but I listen to rap music. Shame on me. I’m also old enough to know that just because I like listening to someone sing about doing drugs or shooting people doesn’t mean I have to go out and do those things. For the record, I listened to some fairly unsavory stuff when I was a teenager too, and I didn’t turn into a promiscuous, drug user. So I’m thinking if kids are so weak minded that they do everything they hear about they had problems long before they listened to “bad” music.

Anyway, point being I like 50 Cent’s music quite a bit. Don’t know much else about him, so I was eager to read this autobiography. For the most part, this is an interesting book.

I realize that he probably had someone else write it, he tells his story, someone else crafts it into readable form maybe. I also know that famous people don’t always tell the truth. (Big secret here – non-famous people also tell lies.)

Basically this book is about 50’s drug dealing. He’s pretty detailed about the dealing. Preparing the product, marketing the product, the various means of working a corner. At first it was intriguing, after a while it became a bit repetitive. Not being all that versed in the drug world, some of it was a bit over my head. Also, being that some of the information is so detailed and delivered in such a matter of fact, non apologetic way, I began to feel a little dirty reading this – and not the good kind of dirty, it was as if by reading about this I was somehow agreeing that it was okay that he was selling drugs. It’s not, 50, drug dealing is bad.

50 seems like a smart, clever guy. Like I said, I don’t know if some of those statements are from him or he had a good writer, who is credited (I believe his name is Kris Ex, or Kris X). But, just so you know, it isn’t like 50 is claiming he wrote this all by himself.

A few things bothered me though, such as the suggestion that he had no option other than to deal drugs because he couldn’t ask his grandmother for money. It isn’t like he needed this money to survive. I got the impression that his grandparents provided him with a decent home and put food on the table. He wasn’t lacking in essentials. He dealt drugs so that he could own 9 pairs of $100 sneakers and wear super expensive clothes and jewelry and have a dirt bike and some kind of fancy motorcycle. As a teenager he was driving SUVs that he paid for in cash, but had to park around the corner so his grandmother wouldn’t find out. I guess dealing is the easy way to get this stuff, but it isn’t necessary stuff, it is, in fact, quite excessive stuff. Stuff that a lot of us are never going to own, at least not through legal means, unless we want to drown in debt, and there are plenty of people okay with doing that. Seems to be a values issue more than a poverty issue.

Also, he refers to a girlfriend of his as a ho because she sleeps with someone else. But a paragraph before that, he admits that he was seeing other people on the side. So technically, wouldn’t that make him a ho also? Okay for him to mess around, but not his girl? Then there is the bit where he’s so annoyed about being sent to a drug rehab facility and keeps saying, “I don’t use drugs, I sell them.” Um, dude, maybe you should keep that info to yourself because wouldn’t the punishment for dealing be worse than using? Should be, if it isn’t. And while he’s ticked off about getting caught, he does seem to acknowledge that what goes around comes around. He knows he broke the law and I think he knows that he got away with quite a bit and got off fairly easy.

And the other thing that upset me -- again, this would have to do with his relationships with women. He’s always buying his girlfriends stuff – expensive stuff and letting them drive his expensive cars. As a woman, I’m going to say right now, if you have to buy a woman something to keep her happy, then she’s really no better than a prostitute. Women like that give the rest of us a bad name. He mentions one woman who he seems to have some respect for, probably because she eventually becomes the mother of his first son. When he meets her she’s working, going to school, acting like she intends to support herself and you get the impression that he’s attracted to her independence. But then he mentions that things are good between them when he’s got money and not so much when the money is running low. He seems to accept this and feels like things would have worked out if only he’d had the money to keep things going. I am no expert on relationships, but if she lost interest because the money was running out, then you’re better off without her. You shouldn’t have to pay to keep a relationship healthy – that’s not healthy. But what do I know about this stuff? I don’t let people buy me stuff, and I’m also what you might call chronically single. Maybe guys like paying for women… maybe this is why I don't like guys.

Overall, it was interesting read.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I heard so much about this book before I read it. All glowing reviews – "DaVinci Code for intellectuals", or something like that. I was so excited about this book because I love vampires. Pale and bloody and cold and absurdly intense. Just can't get enough of a good vampire story. But alas, a good vampire story is hard to find. And I didn't find one here.

Maybe it was partially my fault. I started reading the book the same week school started back up and haven't been able to devote any long periods of time to reading. But usually, if a book is interesting enough, I figure out a way to fit it in to my schedule, regardless of how busy I might be. This book though, I never reached a point where I just couldn't put it down. I kept waiting for action, and it never happened. So maybe I'm just too accustomed to flying through books. But these days I just feel like there are so many books I want to read, I don't want to waste too much time on one. I need to dive into my books to escape my reality, and believe me, I've been in dire need of an escape lately, and I was never able to immerse myself in this book. If a book is interesting enough, it doesn't take that long to read, irrelevant of the number of pages it contains. However, I will say that if I'd picked this up in the middle of summer and had long Saturdays to do nothing other than lay out in the sun and read, maybe I'd feel differently about it. Maybe, on the other hand, vampires in 100 degree heat, I don't know about that…

Basically, I just didn't find the story very interesting. I was worried that maybe there was something wrong with me. Maybe I'm not the intellectual I think I am. But after finally finishing this, I read through some reviews on amazon, and am glad to see I'm not the only one who had difficulty with this book. I did finish it, granted, I skimmed through the last two hundred pages and I don't feel like I missed all that much. There are so many documents and so much research and I'm not sure that it was all necessary.

There are two separate storylines going on, the narrator is performing her own quest and while doing so, she's reading about what her father did many years before. But I was bothered by all the coincidences, which I assumed were supposed to reflect Dracula's omnipotent power, but it was never fully explained, or maybe I skimmed over that part.

At one point I walked into my office and someone asked how the book was going and I said "I think I've figured out the big twist, and it isn't that big of a twist. Sure enough, a hundred or so pages later, the revelation was made and I didn't find it all that shocking. I'm not giving it away in case you're planning to read it.

I wanted something more exciting, I wanted something a bit more intense and sexy, I guess. I wanted more Dracula. I wanted more danger. Oh there was plenty of danger I suppose, but it was so bogged down by the words, I never felt the chill or the suspense. Also, I suspect the form in which it was written sort of eliminated any suspense from the get go. She's reading old documents written by her father, so you know he's going to live through the danger he's describing. You know her mother is going to stick around for a while, because well, she's her mother so she's not dying immediately.

I think the book had potential. I think maybe it needed a better editor. Maybe some of those long rambling documents and letters could have been summarized in more of a conversational mode.

Overall, I was quite disappointed. I wanted more out of this book. It didn't deliver on all the hype it received. I feel like I got scammed. At some point I'm going to learn that I never like the books that the entire world claims are wonderful.

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby

This is a wonderful book. This is the first Nick Hornby book that I’ve read and I really enjoyed it.

I think everyone knows the premise: four people planning to kill themselves on New Year’s Eve run into each other on the same rooftop, talk each other into living for another six weeks and form a bond. The story is thus about this group and how they decide to continue living. It’s four people who would otherwise have absolutely nothing in common and together they provide some very entertaining experiences.

I liked the way Hornby addressed the issues of depression and despair and reaching the point where a person just doesn’t want to continue living. Hornby respects his characters and he doesn’t treat them as crazy or selfish. I felt like he really showed them as people who have simply reached a point where going forward is very, nearly unbearable.

I’m told that there are people in the world who have never contemplated suicide. How nice it must be to be one of those people. That is something I can’t even imagine, much as those people probably can’t imagine what it feels like to want to stop living.

Reading this book provided a sense of validation, an acknowledgment that these feelings are real and other people have them. I know it’s a work of fiction, but the fact that someone was able to write about these things means that probably somewhere, someone has also felt these things. The kind of pain described on these pages, when it’s happening, you’re certain that no one else in the world has ever felt this bad. But reading this, there are so many moments when I was like, “yes, that’s exactly how it feels”.

One thing this book showed is that sometimes all you need is for someone to acknowledge you. You need to know that other people are expecting you. That’s what saves these people, the fact that they have to meet for coffee in a week, or at the pub in another week, another meeting at the end of the three months. When a person reaches the point where no one knows he exists that’s when he realizes it is okay to stop existing. When you realize that nothing in the world will change if you live or die, no one will even notice you're gone, that’s when you know you don’t need to live anymore. I believe the accepted theory is that suicide happens when your pain outweighs your coping resources -- and everyone has different coping resources, which is why it is so difficult for some to understand the act. That night on the rooftop, these four people gained a stronger set of coping resources. Because they ran into each other, suddenly they have a support system that they had not had before.

I also appreciated that there wasn’t a tidy, happy ending. That would have greatly detracted from the story if everyone had lived happily ever after. They aren’t suddenly repaired and well again because of what happened. They are simply living, for now. For another six months at least because that’s when they plan to meet again.

I highly recommend this book. Though, I’m curious as to other’s opinions. How do I put it nicely? I’m curious as how the mentally sane and stable will regard this book. I wonder, if you’ve never been in that position if you can understand what the characters are going through or if you will even find their experiences all that interesting, or will they simply seem absurd and overdramatic?

Read Aug. 22, 2005

Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

This book works on two levels. One being that it tells a story of Afghanistan, what the country was like before war and the effects the different wars have had on the people of that country. The second purpose it serves is that of being a story of two young boys and their fathers, a story that is something of a tale of lies and guilt and betrayal and redemption.

Over the past few years I’ve tried to read all I can about stories of the Middle East. I’m a news junkie and the tidbits they feed us on the news makes me crave more. I want to know as much as possible about this part of the world, this section of the world so mired in turmoil, that has such a strong effect on our country. That being said, I really enjoyed the element of the book that described Afghanistan. You learn about the country through the eyes of the people who live there. The book provides a much more personal understanding than can be provided on CNN. What I always appreciate most when reading stories about other countries is the knowledge that ultimately we all want the same things. As different as we may seem, we are very similar. We still take care of our families, we play games, and we have big parties. Another lesson to be learned from the stories of Afghanistan are the dangers that can happen when you allow a country to be ruled by religion. Religion should be a personal and private thing, not something dictated by government.

The storyline involving Amir and Hassan and their fathers, Baba and Ali is also very interesting. This is a well-written book, very much a page-turner. There are scenes in this book that could be very horrible and gruesome, but I felt the author handled them in a way that maintained the necessary horror without making the reading unbearable.

I very strongly disliked the character of Amir, who is the narrator of the story. He’s so weak and selfish and jealous. He does some terrible things, allows terrible things to happen as a result of his inaction. I found myself becoming so angered by him because he has so many chances to correct the things he’s done wrong, before they get worse. Instead he makes things worse and he stands by like a coward. He claims he knows what he did wrong, but still he’s claiming he did it for his father’s love. When in fact, he never seems to grasp how deeply his actions hurt his father – his father, who gave up so much for him. Even in the end when his actions should seem obvious, he’s hesitant and cowardly. “But I have a wife and career in America” – he’s whining in the end, and you just want someone to say to him, “But you ruined so many other lives.”

Near the end of the book though, when Amir returns to Afghanistan and confronts the Taliban, some of the coincidences began to get a little absurd. This I found somewhat bothersome. I thought the story felt very real up to that point. Then I just sort of though, “yeah, right that would happen…”

This is a very, very sad story. Unlike other sad stories that I’ve complained about though, I do think there is much to be gained from reading this.

Finished reading Aug. 22, 2005