Bittersweet

 

Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain

Nonfiction

2022

Finished on November 3, 2024

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

In her new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet reveals the power of a bittersweet outlook on life, and why we’ve been so blind to its value.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and the surprising lessons these states of mind teach us about creativity, compassion, leadership, spirituality, mortality, and love.

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy when beholding beauty. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. A song in a minor key, an elegiac poem, or even a touching television commercial all can bring us to this sublime, even holy, state of mind—and, ultimately, to greater kinship with our fellow humans.

But bittersweetness is not, as we tend to think, just a momentary feeling or event. It’s also a way of being, a storied heritage. Our artistic and spiritual traditions—amplified by recent scientific and management research—teach us its power.

Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own sorrows and longings, she says, we can end up inflicting them on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward each other. And we can learn to transform our own pain into creativity, transcendence, and connection.

At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

I listened to the audio version of Susan Cain's popular book, Quiet, last November. I had purchased a copy of Bittersweet while on vacation that year, but held off reading it until I had read Quiet. My book group chose to read and discuss Bittersweet this month, so I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts about this nonfiction work. 

To be honest, I struggled with the book. It felt dense and dry, and I wound up assigning myself a daily page count in order to finish in time for my book group meeting. Looking back at my review of Quiet, I am reminded that I liked it, but it wasn't one that I thought was outstanding, or even very good. Had I not recommended this new book to my book group, I know it would have been a DNF.

Flipping through the pages, looking for passages that did resonate, I came across this one:

One of the cornerstones of Keltner's research, which he summarized in his book Born to Be Good, is what he calls "the compassionate instinct"--the idea that we humans are wired to respond to each other's troubles with care. Our nervous systems make little distinction between our own pain and the pain of others, it turns out; they react similarly to both. This instinct is as much a part of us as the desire to eat and breath.

The compassionate instinct is also a fundamental aspect of the human success story--and one of the great powers of bittersweetness. The word compassion literally means "to suffer together," and Keltner sees it as one of our best and most redemptive qualities. The sadness from which compassion springs is a pro-social emotion, an agent of connection and love; it's what the musician Nick Cave calls "the universal unifying force." Sorrow and tears are one of the strongest bonding mechanisms we have.

While researching Cain and her book, I came across a few items that I want to share. Click on the links to watch.

The Hidden Power of Sad Songs and Rainy Days (TED talk)

But those dreams of peace he had had, you know, we're all still waiting for those, right? Which is the way it often goes, the beautiful world just out of reach. But while we're waiting, our broken hearts can also help connect us.

Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care (Cleveland Clinic) 

Excellent video about empathy.

It will be interesting to see if anyone in my book group enjoyed this book. Sadly, it's not one that I can recommend.

Say Nothing

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

Nonfiction

Narrated by Matthew Blaney

2019

Finished on October 28, 2024

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

I've been meaning to read Say Nothing since I first heard about it after its publication in 2018. Two friends recommended the book, but it wasn't until I learned that Hulu had adapted Keefe's book that I decided to try it on audio. Matthew Blaney's exceptional narration (and lovely Irish accent) should have held my attention, but this is a book that needs to be read in print, perhaps with a yellow highlighter in hand. I wound up listening at 1.50 speed (my usual is 1.0, but that was far too slow for this book), but it still felt excessively long. I lost track of several of the people mentioned, and the chronology was difficult to keep track of as I listened. I was expecting a more detailed story about Jean McConville's abduction (and ultimate execution) rather than an excruciatingly detailed account of the Troubles and the Price sisters' hunger strikes. I went into the book with very little knowledge of the Troubles, although I have vague memories of news reports of various bombings in Ireland. I was surprised to see (while looking up a list of "notable" bombings on Wikipedia) that there were at least 10,000 bomb attacks from 1968 to 1988, and there were additional attacks up until 2001.

Despite my lackluster response to the book, I still intend to watch the TV series. 

The House in the Pines

 

The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes

Fiction - Psychological Thriller

2023

Narrated by Marisol Ramirez

Finished on July 17, 2024

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend's sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed....

Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they'd been spending time with all summer.

Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can't account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer--the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.

At her mother's house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father's book that didn't stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank's cabin....

Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.

Here we go again. Maya is an unreliable narrator (ala Gone Girl, Girl on the Train, etc.) who is withdrawing from Klonopin, suffers from insomnia, and drinks far too much. She is certain that her best friend was murdered when they were seniors in high school, and that the man Maya believes is responsible for Aubrey's death has now killed another woman. But there is no evidence that Frank is guilty, and both events are treated as unexplained deaths. Sounds like the perfect set-up for a mystery/thriller, right? It started off with a strong opening, but fizzled about halfway to the end. I understood what was going on well before the main character did, and the ending was a disappointment. 

I listened to the audiobook and the reader's halting narration during the dialogue portions of the audiobook was noticeable and quickly became a distraction. She also failed to distinguish her voice between characters, male or female, so there were times when I wasn't sure who was speaking. Additionally, the transitions between chapters were confusing in this dual timeline narrative, making it difficult to know when a flashback was introduced.

The audiobook held my interest, but the story would make a better TV series than a book, especially if David Tennant (who was super creepy in Jessica Jones) were to play Frank. 

Can't recommend.

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Drowning

 

Drowning: The Rescue of Flight 1421 by T.J. Newman

Fiction

2021

Narrated by Steven Weber and Laura Benanti

Finished on June 5, 2024

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Flight attendant turned New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.

Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.

More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.

Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.

There’s not much time.

There’s even less air.

With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.

Ugh. Once again, had I been reading the print edition of Drowning, I probably would have quit after a few pages, but since I was listening to the audio, I stuck it out and finished the book. On the other hand, maybe if I had been reading the print copy, the story wouldn't have felt so melodramatic and soap opera-ish. It didn't help that the second reader (Laura Benanti) was too emotive and that her voice grated on my nerves. (I also have a hard time believing an eleven-year-old with a peanut allergy would mistake a cracker with peanut butter for one with cheese...) 

I listened to Falling (T.J. Newman's debut) in 2021, and thought it was very good, but her latest suspense novel was a big disappointment. I don't plan to read her upcoming release, Worst Case Scenario, which comes out in August. I've had my fill of plane crash stories for a while.

I received a complimentary copy from Libro.fm. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The Women

 

The Women by Kristin Hannah

Fiction

Narrated by Julia Whelan

2024

Finished on May 26, 2024

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

An intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie” McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.

In recent years, I have read and enjoyed The Nightingale and The Four Winds, two of Kristin Hannah's exceptional historical novels. Unfortunately, her recent book, The Women, fell short of my expectations. I was able to stay engaged with the audio production mainly due to Julia Whelan's superb narration, but had I read the print edition, I would have quit long before the halfway mark. My biggest complaint is that the novel invests too much time on the challenges of Frankie's romantic life rather than on the war. Hannah does not shy away from the conditions of warfare, or that of the aftereffects of PTSD, but not only did significant romantic events play too large of a role in the narrative, they were easily predictable and cliched, eliciting numerous eye rolls from this reader. Repetitious situations and dialogue added to my frustration, but I willed myself to continue listening. I will say that Hannah did her research, and I had no trouble envisioning locations and landmarks in and around Coronado Island and San Diego county, areas with which I'm well acquainted. I also enjoyed the musical references of the era. But overall, despite the glowing reviews, I was not impressed. I should note that many readers with whom I share similar reading tastes thought this book was outstanding. It is readable, but it's not one that I can recommend. Maybe in the hands of Barabara Kingsolver or Mary Doria Russell this could have been a 5-star read. I do want to get a copy of Karl Marlantes' novel, Matterhorn, which I understand to be an accurate account of the Vietnam War.

Looking Back - Snow Island

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Snow Island by Katherine Towler

Fiction

2002

Finished on February 18, 2002

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

What is life like for a girl coming of age in the shadow of World War II, a girl who lives on a small, isolated island populated by quahoggers and eccentrics?

This tender first novel follows the fate of sixteen-year-old Alice Daggett, who still feels the presence of her father who died six years earlier, and of George Tibbit, a reclusive loner who returns to the island each year in an excessive act of homage to the two women who raised him there.

Snow Island tells of their isolated lives and the impact that WWII has on all of their worlds. Both Alice and George find their lives linked, and changed, forever by the events that happen far from the small New England community that defines them.

Original Review (2002):

Disappointing. One-dimensional characters. Simplistic plot. Predictable. Reads like a YA romance novel. Probably won't read more by this author.

Current Thoughts:

I don't remember reading this book. Even the cover art is unfamiliar to me. I wonder what prompted me to read it. Was it an ARC? Recommended by a friend? Who knows!

Ocean State

 

Ocean State by Stewart O'Nan

Fiction

2022 Atlantic Monthly Press

Finished on August 28, 2023

Rating: 2/5 (Fair) - reduced on 9/1 from 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Set in a working-class town on the Rhode Island coast, O'Nan's latest is a crushing, beautifully written, and profoundly compelling novel about sisters, mothers, and daughters, and the terrible things love makes us do.

In the first line of Ocean State, we learn that a high school student was murdered, and we find out who did it. The story that unfolds from there with incredible momentum is thus one of the build-up to and fall-out from the murder, told through the alternating perspectives of the four women at its heart. Angel, the murderer, Carol, her mother, and Birdy, the victim, all come alive on the page as they converge in a climax both tragic and inevitable. Watching over it all is the retrospective testimony of Angel's younger sister Marie, who reflects on that doomed autumn of 2009 with all the wisdom of hindsight. Angel and Birdy love the same teenage boy, frantically and single mindedly, and are compelled by the intensity of their feelings to extremes neither could have anticipated. O'Nan's expert hand paints a fully realized portrait of these women, but also weaves a compelling and heartbreaking story of working-class life in Ashaway, Rhode Island. Propulsive, moving, and deeply rendered, Ocean State is a masterful novel by one of our greatest storytellers.

Meh. I was tempted to give Ocean State a 2/5 rating, but rounded up since it kept me reading late in the night, eager to learn the outcome of the murder. [Dropped it down to a 2/5 after giving it more thought.] I didn't care for any of the characters, and thought both girls were naive and foolish, trapped in a love triangle gone wrong. I also found it somewhat difficult to keep track of the two main characters until I was several chapters into the book. I have read other novels by O'Nan, which were much more relatable. Emily, Alone and Henry, Himself are two of my favorite books by this author. 

If you don't mind a lot of teenage angst, and enjoy Stewart O'Nan's writing, borrow this one from the library. 

My reviews for the books I've read of O'Nan's:

Emily, Alone (4.75/5)

Henry, Himself (5/5)

Wish You Were Here (3/5)

Last Night at the Lobster (2/5)

Looking Back - A False Sense of Well Being

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

A False Sense of Well Being by Jeanne Braselton

Fiction

2001 Ballantine Books

Finished on January 19, 2002

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

“I was married eleven years before I started imagining how different life could be if my husband were dead. . . .”

At thirty-eight, Jessie Maddox subscribes to House Beautiful, Southern Living, even Psychology Today. She has a comfortable life in Glenville, Georgia, with Turner, the most reliable, responsible husband in the world. But after the storybook romance, “happily ever after” never came. Now the housewife who once wanted to be Martha Stewart before there was a Martha Stewart is left to wonder: Where did the marriage go wrong? Why can’t she stop picturing herself as the perfect grieving widow?

As Jessie dives headlong into her midlife crisis, she is aided and abetted by a colorful cast of characters in the true Southern her best friend and next door neighbor Donna, who is having a wild adulterous affair with a younger man; Wanda McNab, the sweater-knitting, cookie-baking grandmother who is charged with killing her abusive husband. Then there’s Jessie’s eccentric family. Her younger sister Ellen, born to be a guest on Jerry Springer, has taken her seven-year-old son and squawking pet birds and left her husband “for good this time” . . . while their mother crosses the dirty words out of library books and alerts everyone to the wonderful bargains at Winn-Dixie, often at the same time. And then there’s the stuffed green headless duck . . .

When a trip home to the small town of her childhood raises more questions than it answers, Jessie is forced to face the startling truth head-on–and confront the tragedy that has shadowed her heart and shaken her faith in love . . . and the future.

From a brilliant new voice in fiction, here is a darkly comic novel full of revelation and insight. The danger of secrets and the power of confession . . . The pull of family, no matter how crazy. . . The fate of wedlock when one can’t find the key . . . Jeanne Braselton weaves these potent themes into a funny, poignant, utterly engaging story of a woman at the crossroads–and the unforgettable journey she must take to get back home.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

Starts off weakly. I think the author is trying to be funny, but I don't see it that way. I'll keep plugging away.

Thought this book was a waste of time. Pretty pointless and dull. Don't recommend and won't read more by this author. 

My Current Thoughts:

I don't know why this book appealed to me, but after a little digging, I discovered that Braselton was good friends with Kaye Gibbons, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Lee Smith. I read a lot of southern fiction in the early 2000s, and this book was probably mentioned in a magazine or somewhere online.

I came across the following (on Georgia Center for the Book), which is rather sad and depressing:

Jeanne Braselton was a Georgia native whose semi-autobiographical debut novel "A False Sense of Well Being" (2001) was widely acclaimed and won her the Georgia Writer of the Year Award in 2002. She committed suicide before her second book was completed by her friend and fellow writer Kaye Gibbons and published in 2006.

Jeanne Braselton was born in Fort Oglethorpe in 1962. She was the adopted daughter of a poet who was a chief of the Cherokee nation and who gave her a love of the written word. She received a B.S. in English from Berry College in Rome in 1983. She worked as a commercial bank marketing executive but spent most of her working life as a reporter and editor for the Rome News-Tribune newspaper, for which she received a number of Georgia Press Association awards. She was married to the poet Al Braselton, a close friend of the late poet James Dickey and the source for one of Dickey's characters in the novel "Deliverance." He died in 2002.

Jeanne Braselton enrolled in a creative writing class in Rome that led her to correspond with and become friends with a number of regional writers including Kaye Gibbons, Anne Rivers Siddons and Lee Smith. With their encouragement, she wrote her first novel. The book is about a woman who is devoted to her loving but boring husband, and who, after suffering a miscarriage, becomes fixated on ways to bring about his death. There are autobiographical elements in the novel; Braselton had several miscarriages during her marriage. The book sold well; one critic called it "regional fiction at its best," and there were predictions of a long literary career for her.

But less than a year after her husband's death in 2002, a despondent author took her own life at the couple's home in Rome. Her second book, "The Other Side of Air," was completed by Gibbons and released in 2006." She had written a lot that was unusable," Gibbons said of Braselton's novel. "I started over using an e-mail she sent me when she started it about what her plans were. She was thinking clearly then, and it was realistic, and I used that for a model."

Stoner

 

Stoner by John Williams

Fiction/Classic

2010 Blackstone Audio (first published in 1965)

Narrated by Robin Field

Finished on May 14, 2023

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

It's been at least a decade since I first heard about Stoner, most likely by reading several reviews by fellow bloggers. I decided to give the audio production a try, and Robin Field does a decent job with the narration, but this may have been one to read in print; the melancholy tone is at times overwhelming, adding to the bleakness of the story. Stoner is a quiet novel, and while I came to care about the main character, the book failed to live up to my expectations. It brought to mind The Winter of Our Discontent (Steinbeck), and Stoner's neurotic wife, coincidentally, reminded me of Cathy, the despicable character in another Steinbeck novel, East of Eden. 

Looking Back - Skipping Christmas

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Skipping Christmas by John Grisham

Fiction

2001 Doubleday

Finished in November 2001

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

Imagine a year without Christmas. No crowded shops, no corny office parties, no fruitcakes, no unwanted presents. That's just what Luther and Nora Krank have in mind when they decide that, just this once, they'll skip the holiday altogether. Theirs will be the only house on the street without a rooftop Frosty the snowman; they won't be hosting their annual Christmas Eve bash; they aren't even going to have a tree. They won't need one, because come December 25 they're setting sail on a Caribbean cruise. But, as this weary couple is about to discover, skipping Christmas brings enormous consequences - and isn't half as easy as they'd imagined.

A classic tale for modern times, Skipping Christmas offers a hilarious look at the chaos and frenzy that has become part of our holiday tradition.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

Quick read, although at times tedious. Could have been condensed and still made its point. Another departure from Grisham's legal thrillers, yet not nearly as literary as A Painted House. Predictable, sentimental, and anti-climactic. Mediocre. I'm glad I didn't waste my money on this one.

My Current Thoughts:

Christmas can be very hectic and stressful, so I can see the appeal of skipping the holiday. We usually have a large gathering for Thanksgiving, but our Christmas celebration is low-key, which is kind of nice. As far as Grisham's book goes, if you're interested, borrow it from the library. It's not one I'll ever read again. 

Looking Back - The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LaBlanc

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Scandalous Summer of Sisy LeBlanc by Loraine Despres

Fiction

2001 William Morrow

Finished in November 2001

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

It's a steamy June afternoon in Louisiana, circa 1956, and Sissy LeBlanc is sitting on her front porch, wondering -- half seriously -- if she could kill herself with aspirins and Coca-Cola. She's been living in stifling old Gentry since the day she was born and trapped in a sham of a marriage to PeeWee LeBlanc since she was only seventeen. In short, she's fed up, restless, and ready for an adventure. Sissy just never imagined temptation would come into her life that breathless summer day as she sat smoking on her porch swing. For although she may have been fixated on the taut muscles of the lineman shimmying down the telephone pole across the street, she hadn't allowed herself to imagine that he'd be none other than her high school sweetheart, Parker Davidson, who left town fourteen years before without so much as a wave good-bye. But suddenly, here he is, leaning in for a kiss that will stir up more excitement than Sissy could ever have imagined...

My Original Thoughts (2001):

Picked this book up for its cover. I thought it was going to be another Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, but I was wrong! An easy read, but I spent the entire time wondering why I kept reading it. Don't recommend!

My Current Thoughts:

I'm glad I no longer feel compelled to finish a book I'm not enjoying. 

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

 

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May

Nonfiction - Memoir

2020 Riverhead Books

Finished on November 18, 2022

Rating: 2/5 (OK)

Publisher's Blurb:

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

I had high expectations for this book, but unfortunately, it didn't wow me. I enjoyed some parts better than others, but overall found it unrelatable, meandering, and lacking focus. Is it a memoir? A collection of essays? A self-improvement guide? I liked it well enough to finish, but it's not one that I'll hang on to.

The Fortnight in September

The Fortnight in September by R. C. Sherriff

Fiction

2021 Scribner (first published in 1931)

Finished on October 1, 2022

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Meet the Stevens family as they prepare to embark on their annual holiday to the coast of England. Mr. and Mrs. Stevens first made the trip to Bognor Regis on their honeymoon, and the tradition has continued every September since. They follow the same carefully honed schedule--now accompanied by their three children, twenty-year-old Mary, seventeen-year-old Dick, and little brother Ernie.

Arriving in Bognor, they check in at Seaview, the guesthouse where they always stay. It's a bit shabbier than it once was--the landlord died and his wife is struggling as the number of guests dwindles. But the family finds bliss in booking a slightly bigger cabana (with a balcony!) and in their rediscover of familiar, beloved sights. 

Mr. Stevens takes long walks, reflecting on his life, his worries and disappointments, and returns refreshed. Mrs. Stevens treasures an hour spent sitting alone with her medicinal glass of port. Mary has her first taste of romance. And Dick pulls himself out of the malaise he's sunk into since graduation, resolving to work towards a new career. The family savors every moment of their holiday, keenly aware that things may not be the same next year.

Delightfully nostalgic, The Fortnight in September is an extraordinary novel about ordinary people enjoying simple pleasures.

The Fortnight in September embodies the kind of mundane normality the men in the dug-out longed for – domestic life at 22 Corunna Road in Dulwich, the train journey via Clapham Junction to the south coast, the two weeks living in lodgings and going to the beach every day. The family’s only regret is leaving their garden where, we can imagine, because it is September the dahlias are at their fiery best: as they flash past in the train they get a glimpse of their back garden, where ‘a shaft of sunlight fell through the side passage and lit up the clump of white asters by the apple tree.’ This was what the First World War soldiers longed for; this, he imagined, was what he was fighting for and would return to (as in fact Sherriff did).

He had had the idea for his novel at Bognor Regis: watching the crowds go by, and wondering what their lives were like at home, he ‘began to feel the itch to take one of those families at random and build up an imaginary story of their annual holiday by the sea...I wanted to write about simple, uncomplicated people doing normal things.’

The Fortnight in September was my final selection for the 20 Books in Summer reading challenge. I thought it was a perfect choice given that I started reading it in September while on our road trip. Unfortunately, the combination of a lackluster story and the distraction of exploring Glacier National Park made for a disappointing read. The writing (particularly the dialogue) is  often simplistic, which the author admits to in his autobiography (a portion of which is included at the end of the novel). 

I told myself all along that I was writing for my eyes alone, without the least intention of showing it to a publisher. If I'd had any thoughts of that I shouldn't have enjoyed writing it so much. But when it was finished I couldn't help wanting to show it to somebody to find out what they thought of it. When I read it through it seemed as if it was written in children's language, but off the beam for children. If was no good offering it as a children's book, but I couldn't think what sort of grown-up people would swallow it.

I didn't care for any of the characters and felt that Mr. Stevens was vain and self-centered. I would have liked to have learned more about Mrs. Stevens whose personality we are only given a vague impression. As others have remarked, this is a quiet book with not much in the way of action, and I must admit that I was bored, only reading to the very end on the chance that something momentous occurs. 

Looking Back - The Catcher in the Rye

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Fiction/Classic

1951 Little, Brown and Company

Finished on June 15, 2001

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

Since his debut in 1951 as The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield has been synonymous with "cynical adolescent." Holden narrates the story of a couple of days in his sixteen-year-old life, just after he's been expelled from prep school, in a slang that sounds edgy even today and keeps this novel on banned book lists. It begins, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them." His constant wry observations about what he encounters, from teachers to phonies (the two of course are not mutually exclusive) capture the essence of the eternal teenage experience of alienation.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

I didn't read this in high school or college [shocking, I know!], so I decided it was high time that I did. Thank goodness it's a fairly brief story--although, I thought it was terribly dull. Maybe I missed the underlying themes, but even a follow-up read of the Cliffs Notes left me wondering what all the hype is about. I did find a particular passage that I enjoyed, but otherwise, I can't recommend the book. Too much teenage angst!

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. (Holden Caulfield)

My Current Thoughts:

I don't understand why this is such a popular book. I wasn't impressed.

Klara and the Sun

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Fiction - Dystopic

2021 Alfred A. Knopf

Finished on July 10, 2022

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the best-selling author of Never Let Me Go and The Remains of the Day, a stunning new novel—his first since winning the Nobel Prize in Literature—about the wondrous, mysterious nature of the human heart.

From her place in the store, Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her, but when the possibility emerges that her circumstances may change forever, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

In Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro looks at our rapidly changing modern world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator to explore a fundamental question: what does it mean to love?

My book group is discussing Klara and the Sun later next week. I have heard so much praise for this novel and have always intended to read something by Ishiguro, so I was happy to get a copy from the library with plenty of time to read it for the discussion. My overall impression is that this is a very odd story. It took me three or four chapters before I got interested in the novel and almost quit early on. I went back to Goodreads and read some of the reviews posted by my friends and decided to push on and see why so many loved Klara's story. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, which became annoying as the story progressed. There are details about Klara and the dystopic society that are confusing, but most of my questions were answered in the Q&A section on Goodreads. There is a vagueness to the plot, and the ending is ambiguous; the combination was frustrating and makes me wonder if I'm not smart enough for Ishiguro or if I simply missed the underlying metaphors. It will be interesting to hear the opinions of my fellow book group members, but whether or not they enjoyed the book, I'm sure we'll have plenty to discuss. I plan to read Never Let Me Go, which has been languishing on my shelves for years, but Ishiguro's latest isn't one that I can recommend. I hope Kazuo Ishiguro isn't going to be one of those authors like Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison (I know, I know) who just isn't for me. 

We Run the Tides

We Run the Tides by Vendela Vida

Fiction

2021 Harper Audio

Narrated by Marin Ireland

Finished June 18, 2022

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

 

An achingly beautiful story of female friendship, betrayal, and a mysterious disappearance set in the changing landscape of San Francisco.

Teenage Eulabee and her magnetic best friend, Maria Fabiola, own the streets of Sea Cliff, their foggy oceanside San Francisco neighborhood. They know Sea Cliff’s homes and beaches, its hidden corners and eccentric characters—as well as the upscale all-girls’ school they attend. One day, walking to school with friends, they witness a horrible act—or do they? Eulabee and Maria Fabiola vehemently disagree on what happened, and their rupture is followed by Maria Fabiola’s sudden disappearance—a potential kidnapping that shakes the quiet community and threatens to expose unspoken truths.

Suspenseful and poignant, We Run the Tides is Vendela Vida’s masterful portrait of an inimitable place on the brink of radical transformation. Pre–tech boom San Francisco finds its mirror in the changing lives of the teenage girls at the center of this story of innocence lost, the pain of too much freedom, and the struggle to find one’s authentic self. Told with a gimlet eye and great warmth, We Run the Tides is both a gripping mystery and a tribute to the wonders of youth, in all its beauty and confusion.

Growing up in both Central and Southern California, the setting for this coming-of-age story appealed to me, and after reading a few reviews by fellow bloggers, I decided to try the audio version. Sadly, I was underwhelmed. Why did I continue to listen? Two reasons: Marin Ireland is a favorite audiobook narrator, and I had questions about Maria Fabiola's disappearance, curious to learn the truth about her suspicious abduction. Eulabee is a likeable character, but she and her friends come across much older than thirteen. Other than Eulabee, the characters are underdeveloped and unrelatable. We Run the Tides will appeal to those who enjoy a nostalgic tale, transporting them back to their junior high school days (particularly during the early 1980s), but there was not enough depth to either the story or the characters to maintain my interest. 

Looking Back - More Than You Know

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon

Fiction

2000 William Morrow

Finished on March 15, 2001

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

In a small town called Dundee on the coast of Maine, an old woman named Hannah Gray begins her story: "Somebody said 'true love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.' I've seen both and I don't know how to tell you which is worse." Hannah has decided, finally, to leave a record of the passionate and anguished long-ago summer in Dundee when she met Conary Crocker, the town bad boy and love of her life. This spare, piercing, and unforgettable novel bridges two centuries and two intense love stories as Hannah and Conary's fate is interwoven with the tale of a marriage that took place in Dundee a hundred years earlier.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

Written by the same author of Five Fortunes. Story about love and ghosts. Alternating chapters, different time periods. Somewhat confusing during the first half of the book. Slightly suspenseful (enough to keep me reading), but not a great book. Too many unanswered questions. I think this author may be a "one hit wonder." So far, I've only enjoyed Five Fortunes. More Than You Know is not one that I can recommend.

My Current Thoughts:

I don't remember much about this novel, but I do remember that I was surprised that it was such a departure from Five Fortunes. 

Looking Back - West With the Night

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

Nonfiction

1983 North Point Press (first published in 1942)

Finished on February 21, 2001

Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

The classic memoir of Africa, aviation, and adventure—the inspiration for Paula McLain’s Circling the Sun and “a bloody wonderful book” (Ernest Hemingway).

Beryl Markham’s life story is a true epic. Not only did she set records and break barriers as a pilot, she shattered societal expectations, threw herself into torrid love affairs, survived desperate crash landings—and chronicled everything. A contemporary of Karen Blixen (better known as Isak Dinesen, the author of Out of Africa), Markham left an enduring memoir that soars with astounding candor and shimmering insights.

A rebel from a young age, the British-born Markham was raised in Kenya’s unforgiving farmlands. She trained as a bush pilot at a time when most Africans had never seen a plane. In 1936, she accepted the ultimate challenge: to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean from east to west, a feat that fellow female aviator Amelia Earhart had completed in reverse just a few years before. Markham’s successes and her failures—and her deep, lifelong love of the “soul of Africa”—are all told here with wrenching honesty and agile wit.

Hailed as “one of the greatest adventure books of all time” by Newsweek and “the sort of book that makes you think human beings can do anything” by the New York Times, West with the Night remains a powerful testament to one of the iconic lives of the twentieth century.

My Original Thoughts (2001):

I read this for my book group, and while I'm glad I did, I didn't really enjoy it. I thought a lot of the chapters were dull and wished it had been more about her flight across the Atlantic, rather than so much of her childhood. Some chapters were interesting (hunting, training horses, etc.), but definitely not a page-turner. Could it have really been written by one of her husbands?

My Current Thoughts:

I was not aware that Paula McLain had written a historical novel about Markham. I'll have to give Circling the Sun a try. Maybe I'll enjoy it more than Markham's memoir.