Book Review- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a really lovely novel written in the form of letters to and from the lovely and enchanting heroine Juliet Ashton. She is a single woman living alone in London following World War II. Juliet has had a career as an author and a columnist, but is looking for a change of pace and a new direction in her life. Through an old cast off book (she had two copies) she receives correspondence from the book's new owner, the lonely but thoughtful and handsome Dawsey Adams. Through their common interests, she comes to learn of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, on the Island of Guernsey in the English Channel. She wonders if the society might be the source of some new material for a book, and begins to correspond with other members. These folks connect through a love of literature, the common experience of the war, and the overwhelming goodness of common people. Juliet becomes romantically involved with the dashing American Mark Reynolds. In doing her research, she determines to visit the Island and get to know her new friends. Upon meeting Dawsey Adams, Juliet feels a great thrill of excitement, but the islanders all wonder about her connection to her editor Sidney. Whom will Juliet choose, and what happened that brings all of these people together around the memory of one of their own who was loved and now lost?

I really enjoyed this book. I found it uplifting and fun to read. I especially liked the breezy, funny way that the letters set the tone for the book, creating a sense of friendship and camaraderie between the characters. It made dealing with the more difficult aspects of the war somewhat filtered through the perspective of each of the characters and their personalities.


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Book Review- You're Wearing That?

You're Wearing That?: Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation by Deborah Tannen

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I first read Deborah Tannen's book, You Just Don't Understand, back in college for an English class.  She is a linguistics professor who has studied taped and observed conversations for her career, and has mostly focused on the way that different genders perceive different aspects of conversation. For this book, she has focused on the way that women talk to each other, specifically mothers and daughters.  She discusses the difference between the message (the actual words spoken) and the metamessage (the message behind the words spoken, either as intended by the speaker or perceived by the listener). 

This is a really insightful book about relationships between mothers and daughters. It helps to understand the relationships between mothers and daughters when we know that we see each other as reflections of ourselves. I had to laugh when I read the chapters where mothers and daughters expressed their conflict over hairstyles and clothing. It seems for some mother/daughter pairs this doesn't end at the end of the daughter's teenage years. Another aspect of the relationship dynamic is that the mothering role is of such deep and intense importance to both women that it is a source of deep emotional insecurity and need for reassurance. Mothering is a task that can never been done perfectly, yet it such a critical aspect of family life and society. Women cannot help but feel inadequate to the task, yet they deeply seek affirmation that they are doing well enough.

A couple of important things I gleaned from this book is that the reason these relationships are so intense is twofold-- because they are both important and intimate. The other important message of this book is to recognize the relationship between connection and control in mother-daughter relationships. Mothers come from a place of protection and love, and daughters tend to see that as controlling. Daughters reach out for connection and a mother's solicited advice sounds like she doesn't trust her daughter or think she can handle her own problems. These dynamics lead to problems and conflicts, yet the same dynamics also lead to reconciliation and reaching out in love. What both mothers and daughters are seeking is love, intimacy, connection, and for each to be seen for who she really is. The best way to improve communication is use humor, and to recognize the real message behind the words and respond to that in a loving way.

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Book Review- The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Pillars of the Earth is an inspiring and thrilling book. I loved it. Be warned however, that the book depicts both sex and violence (often together) very graphically. This however, is a typical worldview and experience of the people of the Middle Ages, (specifically, twelfth century Britain) the time in which this book is set. At this time, the human race lived with constant violence as a part of everyday life. Sensitive readers should beware of this and may choose to avoid the book for these reasons.

The book follows a number of different individuals over the course of about three decades. There is Philip, a monk who comes from a quiet forest monastary; Tom Builder and his family, who are seeking work and sustenance; Ellen, a beautiful young woman who lives in the forest with her son Jack; the powerful Hamleigh family, who wreak ruthless violence upon all; and a young lady named Aliena and her brother who are the children of the Earl. Each individual and family rises and falls (many times over) in security, power, and capabilities, and each experience the consequences of choices made by themselves and by others. Their stories are set against the backdrop of the building of the Kingsbridge Cathedral, a long and bloody civil war, and a challenge between the monarchy and the catholic church.

I liked the book on many levels. The plot was wonderful, character development was interesting and compelling, and the historical setting fascinating. Follett is a great story teller, having developed his writing chops as a thriller-action novelist. His prose is nothing special--simple and straightforward, and accessible, yet at the same time he creates imagery of both the external and internal environments of the noval that is both vivid and forceful. I loved the way the book followed the characters over such a long period of time, allowing the reader to experience their personality development as they matured and experienced the joys and cruelties of their lives.

The central metaphor of the book, the cathedral, undergoes a similar development as the characters, experiencing similar disasters, triumphs. It becomes a source of strength and hope for the community. The cathedral develops into something completely different than anyone had initially conceived. When the cathedral is damaged or shows signs of weakness, these trials inspire the builders to make the cathedral more fortified, more mighty, and more beautiful. Through the process of time, and by long and arduous effort, the cathedral evolves into something triumphant and holy.

Pillars of the Earth will definitely make my read-again list.

I'm a Cheater

I'm reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. Middlemarch is supposed to be one of the greatest books of English Literature, and the prototype example of the Victorian novel. However, it is extremely long (over 800 pages) and very slow moving. This is a self-inflicted act of martyrdom that has its root going back over 20 years when I was an exchange student at Coffs Harbour (Jetty) High School in Australia, and decided that it was time for me to become a culturally literate person. I made myself a list of novels, authors, and poets, that I felt I needed to read in order to become an intellectual and embarked on a life quest of reading classic literature. I finished my initial reading list within a matter of months, but have continued the practice throughout my lifetime.

This quest led me to major in English in college, and has brought me to the likes of Milton, Dante, Austen, Hugo, etc. Through it all there have always been classics that I didn't enjoy, like Beowolf, and the crazy bizarre French lit (Bartes, Zola, etc.) in my theory classes. On the other hand, my quest has also led me to many that I have loved again and again such as Austen, Hugo, Dumas, Frost, Cather, and more. Middlemarch is going to land I think on the leave-it side of take-it-or-leave-it, yet I am compelled by the terms of my quest to finish it.

Here's the thing-- I am completely swamped in Middlemarch. I started reading it months ago, and I am only about 200 pages from the end, but I can't bring myself to pick it up. So I have been sneaking around reading other stuff like magazine articles, holiday catalogs, and of course the Internet. I cruise around Barnes and Noble fantasizing about what I will read next. Or at least I was doing that until it happened--I started another book (a big one)-- The Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett. I've been keeping it in my purse. That way I force myself to only read it on my lunch break or if I get stuck waiting somewhere. This keeps me honest about reading Middlemarch at home right?

Then, I bought another book that captured my eye, Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks. I love books about sensory perception and the brain and Sacks always has lots of fascinating cases in his books. I dutifully left the book on my pile, and kept slogging through Middlemarch, until I said to myself, "Oh, I can read one chapter, and then get back to Middlemarch, and it won't really be like I started another book, because it's just one chapter!" Haven't touched Middlemarch in about a week since I opened that book (except to move it to vacuum the floor in my bedroom).

So I'm a book cheater. I'm having an affair on my novel, with another novel and a sort-of-medical book. If I don't get back to Middlemarch soon, I will have to re-read to get caught up with where I am in the book. I think I may need serious help.

Book Review- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I Capture the Castle is an old novel by a somewhat well-known British Author, Dorothy (Dodie) Smith. Most people know of her most famous book, 101 Dalmations, which was the basis of the Disney film.


I Capture the Castle features Cassandra Mortmain as the young narrator/journalist whose experiment in learning to speed-write leads her to begin a diary describing her family life. Set in 1930's England, Cassandra writes of the physical and emotional poverty and richnesses of her family, which is living in a ruined castle that has been rebuilt into a farmhouse. The book has shades of Jane Austen, as the whole family (outside of the dottering father) takes on the role of attempting to marry off the oldest daughter, Rose, to their rich American neighbor and landlord.


The book is an interesting study of class as well. An example of this is the relationship between the Mortmains and a young boy who lives with them, Stephen. Stephen was the son of their former maid/nanny who remained with the family after she died. However, the family still views him as a servant even though he is the only one providing for the family, bringing in income and sharing it with the whole family. Cassandra looks upon him with a combination of love and disdain.


The character of Cassandra, as the narrator, is the central figure of the novel. It is fascinating to witness her evolution from a naive young child into a somewhat conniving and emotionally complex young woman in a matter of a very short time as she begins to experience the world in a more socially complex way and starts to feel the pangs of love and hormones.


The novel has a fun British sort of tone to it, reminiscent of Austen with a modern twist of PG Wodehouse. I think the novel reveals the kind of British humor that you see in quirky Britcom shows and movies.


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Book Review-- the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time (there are no caps in the title on the cover of the book) is a kind of murder-mystery told from the perspective of the narrator, one Christopher John Francis Boone, a teen who lives in a small British town with his father. Christopher discovers his neighbor's dog, Wellington, impaled on a pitchfork, and is assumed to be the dog's killer. Upon being released to his father's care, he determines that he will become a detective and solve the mystery of the dog's demise. In the process, he writes a book detailing the things he learns in the course of his investigation. Oh, one more thing, Christopher is autistic. Christopher learns way more than he bargained for, and the reader learns along with him.

Christopher is not only the narrator of this book, but is also something of a hero as he enters into a kind of epic journey and learns to deal with a whole new paradigm. We get the opportunity to see the world through Christopher's perspective and can acknowledge how insane many things about our world can be when viewed through a strictly logical lens. This can be amusing such as when Christopher points out the silliness of common metaphors:

I laughed my socks off.

He was the apple of her eye.

They had a skeleton in the cupboard.

We had a real pig of a day. (Never heard that one)

The dog was stone dead.

Christopher says, "I think a metaphor should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards."

Of course, Christopher's world doesn't make perfect sense either. For example, he hates the color yellow, and evaluates his days categorizes his days as Good, Quite Good, Super Good, and Black. A Black Day is a day when he sees 4 yellow cars in a row on the way to school. On Black Days, Christopher refuses to work, eat, or speak.

There are other interesting visual, numerical, and linguistic problems and details included throughout the book that help not only develop the plot, but also help explain how Christopher deals with the world.

I found this book fascinating, and it is such a great device to have a narrator with this kind of unique voice allowing the reader to anticipate the things that Christopher doesn't see, to see things that the reader would never normally notice, and to have great empathy and compassion for Christopher and his parents.

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Book Review- Austenland by Shannon Hale

Austenland: A Novel by Shannon Hale

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Jane Hayes has a problem-- she is in love with Mr. Darcy-- specifically the Colin Firth Mr. Darcy from the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. Next to him, no man is good enough. A long-lost auntie leaves her an inheritance-- three weeks at Pembrook Park, a Regency-era reenactment estate in England, where she must dress, speak, and act as if she is a character in Jane Austen's England. There, in character as Jane Erstwhile, she must confront her fears about love and determine if she wants to live forever in her fantasy or take a chance on the real thing. The book ends in the spirit of Jane Austen with a suprise twist on what is actually real, and true love prevails. This was a quick, fun summer read. I read that at one point Hale was developing this as a screenplay, and it would make a great romantic comedy.


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Book Review- Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 1 of 5 stars
So I just finished reading this book. I have had recommendations from friends that this is a good easy read. I don't really know why I even read these any more because I never enjoy them. Anyway, this book is written for teenage girls, and I suspect it would play very well with that audience. After all, I loved Karate Kid when I was that age.



I thought Twilight was boring and flat. I don't really understand the fuss I've been hearing. The story focuses on Isabella (Bella) Swan and Edward Cullen. Bella moves to Forks, Washington after her mother remarries and decides to follow her new husband in his career. Bella hates everything about Forks except her Dad, Charlie. Everyone seems to know who she is before she arrives, but she just wants to be invisible. Pretty soon Bella is the target of all of the boys at Forks High School, none of whom hold any interest for her except Edward Cullen, who acts like he can't stand her. Turns out he is so attracted to her that he doesn't trust himself to be around her. Bella is nearly immediately and "irrevocably" (and inexplicably) in love with Edward and he finds himself having to save her from her own clumsiness and what seems to be her destiny to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.



I don't find Bella to be a very compelling character at all, and I am having a hard time understanding what the appeal is for Edward-- it has to be more than that she smells good. She is supposedly articulate and well-read, but to me she seems boring. She seems to be a loner, but for someone who is so independent-minded she does not seem to have much of an active inner-life that would make her appealing to the teenage male population of the entire town of Forks. She spends her time alone brooding, writing emails, listening to CD's, taking showers, etc. ZZZZZzzzz. She rarely seems to catch on to anything that is going on around her. Maybe this gets developed further in the sequels.



Edward is a more interesting character as he is more developed (strange since the whole story is told from Bella's perspective as the narrator), but I can't help but wonder why a man who is supposedly 80 plus years old would be interested in a 17 year old girl. The constant sexual tension seems creepy to me in that context. He is chronically on the knife edge of wanting to devour her and wanting to protect her. Sounds like some kind of creepy Nabokov-esque fantasy.



The rest of the characters have even less character development. The writing falls flat and the dialogue is stilted. Bella seems to have a stronger connection with the vampire family than even her own family (despite her attempts to protect her parents).



Overall, I guess this book is just not my style. If you want to read a really good vampire book, try The Historian, which is a lyrical book that has interesting characters with actual plot development.


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Book Review-- Ghost Rider by Neal Peart

Ghost Rider is a memoir of the author's (Neal Peart, Rock Star Drummer, author, etc.) journey from grief to grief as he travels alone across North America on his motorcycle. The reader is brought into his inner thoughts through his journals and letters to dear friends and family. The level of his grief is profound, and for me it meant that I sometimes needed to take a break from the book. And his journey through that grief goes on, and on, just like the Ghost Rider. The author is very gracious for allowing the reader into this tender and painful part of his life. I was amazed at the kindness he displayed toward his own pain-- noting that his grief had splintered him into many characters, each of whom served a different purpose in helping him cope. He seemed to have a tenderness toward these fractured aspects of himself and treated them as if they were all friends. It was a very profound lesson in moving on by keeping moving (but moving in a previously unforseen and unknowable direction). I was relieved and satisfied that eventually he is able to exit "Death Valley" and find access to joy again.

One thing that I found very interesting in the book were the common literary references (didn't expect this from a drummer in a rock band.) For example, the title of one of the chapters is "Homeward Angel, On the Fly" is a reference to a Milton poem (possibly also a Thomas Wolfe book entitled Look Homeward, Angel), Lycidas, in which an "uncouth swain" mourns the too-soon passing of a dear one lost at sea,


"Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer"


At the point in the poem where Milton writes, "Look homeward angel" he makes a turning point from describing the bitter sorrow that the whole earth feels at the loss of this friend, noting that the weeping must end as Lycidas has gone home as an angel where heaven is all that much more improved for the presence of Lycidas. And then the shepherd aka "the uncouth swain" moves on...

"And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the Western bay;
At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:
To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. "

Book Review- Infidel by Aayan Hirsi Ali

I learned so much from reading this book. Aayan Hirsi Ali has led an astonishing life characterized by cruelty and oppression, and yet throughout her life has somehow preserved a sense of hope, love of mankind, and a deep perception of real justice. I found her premise about the reason for the rise of terrorist groups very compelling. Hirsi Ali argues that because governments based on Islamic Law (Sharia) cannot be criticized (because if Allah requires it, it cannot be questioned), when government fails the people, the people must turn outward rather than questioning their own decisions and systems. In this situation, the natural instinct is to criticize Islam's perceived enemies, i.e., Jews and Western civilizations.

Hirsi Ali has been a champion against the maltreatment of women in Islamic societies, and compels us to look at our own role in not condemning practices such as female genital mutilation, honor killings, and physical and emotional abuse of girls and women. Hirsi Ali believes that Western guilt and political correctness requires that we look the other way in the guise of tolerance. While I find her argument very compelling, I also think that she paints with a very broad brush, blaming human problems on religious beliefs. I tend to agree with her that Islam is fundamentally flawed for many reasons, not the least of which is that it cannot grow and change as the world evolves.

This book is so brave, and I know it puts the author at grave risk to have published it. She takes us from her childhood growing up in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, and Kenya, to her escape from an arranged marriage and asylum in Holland. She eventually becomes a Dutch citizen and a member of parliament. The story is told in a level of intimacy and detail and skill that must be drawn from her history of the oral tradition of her family, as she describes her grandmother passing on the family legends. I found it somehow a personal connection to know that Aayan (that is how I think of her after reading her memoir) is just my age, born just 5 months before me.