Where Am I?

I LOVE this idea-how interesting to get a sneak peek into what everyone else is reading! Besides pulling my hair out waiting for my first group interview for grad school, I have been trying to relax myself with a little reading! I am reading "Geek Love" STILL! I have been struggling to pick it up in my free time but it has been getting better and better as I go along!
For those of you who haven't read one of Carlin's previously blogs, I love the strange, demented, CRAZY storylines, with as much gross-out as possible. My favorite author, Chuck Paluhnuik, recommended this author and book in his Portland travel book. So I thought I would check it out!
Geek Love is a story about a carnival family, the Binewskis, who strive to have a family of "geeks," or circus freaks. During the mothers pregnancy, they try all sorts of things to ensure the unborn will come out with some sort of "power" or oddity. The story basically outlines circus live with the various family members.
At this point in the book, with only 40 pages to go, the Siamese twins Iphy & Elly just birthed a 26 lb. baby named Mumpo, Oly (the albino, humpback, bald, dwarf) just asked her youngest brother Chick, to impregnant her with her older brother Arty's semen using only his (Chick's) mind to do it. Arty is Aquaboy and he has a series of followers called the Arturans who are willing to shed their limbs for him! The book also goes into the future every once in awhile where Oly is watching both her mother and her daughter without them knowing! Thankfully, her daughter Miranda was born with a tail! At least she wasn't a "norm!"
Wow-what a storyline! Will keep you updated on how it ends! Can't wait to hear what everyone else is reading!

Where Are You?

OK, OK so it's Wednesday...Anyway, where are you? This "book challenge" comes from raidergirl3 and it seems like a fun thing to post about once a week. Here is how it works...each Tuesday we can write about "where we are" in whatever book we are reading. Even though it's Wednesday, here is where I am:

In 1929 Baghdad with Freya Stark, subject of the biography "The Passionate Nomad" by Jane Fletcher Geniesse. Freya is a fearless traveler, intent on learning about and seeing as much as possible in the Middle East. She is a self-taught expert in the varied cultures and languages, and loves to take expeditions into the desert to meet with nomadic tribal chieftains. To the officers at the British colonial club, Freya is a pain in the neck. In one instance, she is headed to Sheikh Ajil's encampment and:

"...talked it up to numerous ladies as well as to Stefana Drower, urging them to come along -- no doubt puckishly aware of the implications if they accepted. Most wanted to and scuttled home to ask permission of their husbands. To a man, with the exception of Mr. Drower, who respected his wife's scholarly leanings, the husbands forbade the excursion, and the ladies dropped out. Freya and Stefana went anyway and were deeply moved by the peace and grave dignity of nomadic life."

Next time, I will try to post on Tuesday, in keeping with the theme of this challenge. But for now, this Wednesday, where are you?

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

So, a few weeks ago I saw the movie trailer for the movie The Reader. The trailer was vague at best, but it has two of my favorite actors: Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. The movie then went into the back burner of my brain filed under 'to watch at some point'.

While perusing the books at Barnes and Noble, I saw the book The Reader. I always like to see how a book begins...chapter one, first paragraph. I liked it. It pulled me in.

When I was fifteen, I got hepatitis. It started in the fall and lasted until spring. As the old year darkened and turned colder, I got weaker and weaker. Things didn't start to improve until the new year. January was warm, and my mother moved my bed onto the balcony. I saw sky, sun, clouds, and heard the voices of children playing in the courtyard. As dusk came one evening in February, there was the sound of a blackbird singing.
Not ever needing to buy another book, I had to buy this one. I think I actually bought it, and finished reading it in a couple of weeks. Which for me, is impressive. Most books don't usually hold my attention.

I found Schlinks writing style to be simple, but richly effective in telling the story. The story itself was also simple in idea, but was as vast and complex as love is, yet, still maintaining an elegant simplicity.

The story spans the adulthood of the narrative male Michael Berg ( I think that's his name...clarification is not of of this books strong points). I don't think the reader is ever actually given a date in which the story begins, but you get the idea as you move through the book. If I had to guess, I'd say the book begins in the late 1950's. In post war era Germany.

I particularly enjoyed that I had not yet seen the movie, but was able to visualize Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes in their roles. I think Kate Winslet was cast perfectly.

This has been my favorite book since we started the book club (even though it wasn't a club pick). The sentiments and philosophical points of the story I think will stay with me for many years to come. The story is both sad and poignant. But not so sad that it puts you in a foul mood after reading it. It's a sad that you can disconnect from, yet understand and empathize with at the same time. It's also short. Around 200 pages.

This is my favorite little tidbit from the story. Which happens to be at the end.

But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feelings of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive.

There you have it, a little review on The Reader. Definitely worth my time. Maybe yours?!

Happy Reading

Maggie

Back to reading!

I just wanted everyone to know that I finally finished my application to graduate school and I am back on the reading bandwagon. I have been reading Geek Love, a glorious book about a family of "geeks" or circus freaks as we more commonly refer to them. Pretty interesting so far! After that I am planning on reading Wicked as it has been recommended to me by several of my good friends, Carlin included! Hope you are all finding some good reads while bookclub is on stand-by!

Just dropping by...

... to say hi!

We've been combating bronchitis at my house: first Mia and now myself. We'll both be off to the babysitter and work tomorrow because life just keeps on livin'. :)

I'm reading the new Wally Lamb, "The Hour I First Believed". It's the story about a high school English teacher who teaches at Columbine High School. His wife also worked at the school and was in the school library when the 1999 shootings happened. I know, grim, right? She has PTSD and they figure out how to deal with the aftermath of it all and how it affects their lives. It is fiction, but Lamb definitely did his research about the Columbine tragedy. I still haven't finished Suite Francaise. I will, though...

I bought Jesse an early Valentine's Day gift- The Yankee Years by Joe Torre... his story about managing the Yankees. I am interested to read it when he's finished.

That's about all from this neck of the woods.

Carlin

Hola from Mexico

Happy new year everyone (wow, it is already February!). Bruce and I were suppose to travel back to Oregon on Feb. 2nd but we extended our stay down here in Cabo San Lucas until Feb. 18th....lucky us.

I have been keeping up on the blogs, and want to contribute my two cents worth:

1) My passions.....I really am passionate about everything I do. I have always been the kind of person who throws herself wholly into any endeavour, having said that if I had to pick a few favorite passions they would be:

a) TRAVEL, I have been to 17 different countries and have many I want to visit and revisit. I love the smell of a new country, trying the food, digging into the history, walking on cobblestones streets that were built centuries before, sitting in a cathedral and having the light from the stained glass fall on my face as I picture what it was like in the past. Crawling over crumbled castle walls, lifting a pint in a local pub, seeing the dungeons and running my fingers over the crevasses of some one's scratchings that are long dead....., trying the mass transit whether it is the bullet train in Japan, a cruise up a fjord in Norway or the crazy taxi ride in Mexico it always gives me a thrill.

b) BOOKS, my mother gave me the gift of reading when she signed me up for the "Happy Hollisters" book club. I use to anticipate my next months books and read them cover to cover, then reread them again and again. I have memories of going on camping trips with my family and staying in the back of the suburban and reading a Happy Hollister book. Later in my teen years my mother gave me the J.R. Tolkien series and I lost myself in the fantasy land of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series. I love to read anything from a good "slutty" historical romance to something deep and disturbing (not scary). My love for books has been a gift I have been able to share with my sister Kay, she has opened my mind and heart to so many things with her passion for reading. I will never forget the thrill she got when she purchased a "library" of books from someone, it was very moving watching the emotions on her face when she would describe her new treasures.

c) ALL THINGS GROWING IN THE GARDEN, my earliest memories of growing things are from our little house we lived in in Creswell. My father tended a flower garden....I have grown many things over the years and have always carved out a little space for plants everywhere I have lived. My house at the beach was overgrown with blackberries, now I have over 50 lavender plants, it makes me feel good.

1) My favorite reads of all time:
a) The J.R. Tolkien series
b) The Diary of Anne Frank
c) The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follet
e) Atlas Shrugged - Ann Rand
f) The Angelique series (period romance set in France)
g) Snow falling on Cedars

3) My Thoughts on Suite Francaise - I really enjoyed this book and felt heart broken that she could not complete her Suite of novels. I liked Storm in June better than Dolce because I felt closer to the characters for some reason. It was very interesting to see how the "class" system was in place but how war stripped that away. The conflicting emotions in Dolce reminded me a little bit of the Welsh girl, you almost felt sorry for some of the Germans. I enjoyed the book, but really enjoyed reading the Appendices at the end, it humanized the whole book for me.

So, I think this brings me up to date. I read the blog from Linda about taking a time out on the book club. I would really like to continue, so maybe she can just rejoin the rest of us later?????

Toni