New Books!

I rarely buy books for myself, unless we're traveling. Whenever we're on a road trip, I love to seek out new-to-me independent bookstores and buy at least one or two books that have been on my list. I love to support those stores! With that said, I rarely receive books for my birthday or Christmas, probably because people don't know what I've read, or what's on my TBR list. This year, I lucked out! My mom not only gave me three books, but she also gave me a gift card. Rather than let that money sit and possibly get spent on other things, I immediately ordered six books on my list. I now have this lovely stack to add to my already-toppling stack of books to read this year. How lucky am I?! Now to decide which to begin with once I finish my current reads.

Thanks, Mom! 💖

Like Family

Like Family by Paolo Giordano
Fiction
2015 Pamela Dorman Books (Viking)
Translated by Anne Milano Appel
Finished on January 2, 2016
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher’s Blurb:

From the author of the international bestseller The Solitude of Prime Numbers, an exquisite portrait of marriage, adulthood, and the meaning of family.

Paolo Giordano’s prizewinning debut novel, The Solitude of Prime Numbers, catapulted the young Italian author into the literary spotlight. His new novel features his trademark character-driven narrative and intimate domestic setting that first made him an international sensation.

When a young married couple hires a middle-aged widow during the wife’s, Nora’s, difficult pregnancy, they don’t realize the dominant force she will become in their household. First as their maid and nanny, then their confidante, Signora A. quickly becomes the glue that holds their small family together. For both husband and wife, her benign influence allows them to negotiate the complexities of married life; for their young son, she becomes the shield who protects him from his parents’ expectations and disappointments.

But the family’s delicate fabric comes undone when Signora A. is diagnosed with cancer. Moving seamlessly between the past and present, highlighting the joys of youth and the fleeting nature of time, Giordano has created an exquisite portrait of adulthood and marriage. Elegiac, heartrending, and deeply personal, this is a jewel of a novel—short, intense, and unforgettable.

I received this lovely book for my birthday from my dear friend, Bellezza. It’s a small book, maybe 5x7, with just 146 pages in all. I fell in love with the stunning cover art as soon as I unwrapped my gift. It’s the sort of book one would leave out on a table, just for that beautiful image. And, there’s something about the compact size of small hardcovers, such as this one and a few others that are on my “keeper” shelves. They’re little works of art, each and every one of them.

They are so aesthetically appealing and so much easier to hold than traditional hardcovers. (Note: I find it interesting that all of these, with the exception of Like Family, are nonfiction/memoirs.) But I digress.

I read this slim novel in just a few short hours. I liked Giordano’s spare prose, but I didn't really feel the intended emotional impact of the characters' loss. Our Souls at Night (Kent Haruf), which is also a short novel about aging and loss, had a much more profound impact on me, as did Emily, Alone (Stewart O’Nan).

There really was a Mrs. A. in my life. She stayed in my house, shared life with my family for a few years, then she had to leave us. This book was inspired by her story. It was meant as a homage to her, a way to keep her with me a little longer. I’ve changed most of the names and I’ve changed several details, but not what I felt was the nature of Mrs. A. And, certainly, not what was my feeling toward her. ~ Paolo Giordano

Final Thoughts:

Like Family is a quiet narrative, easily read in a single day. Many readers have loved this novel, which in many ways reads like a memoir. Have you read it or Giordano’s previous work, The Solitude of Prime Numbers?

Kitchen

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Translated from the Japanese by Megan Backus
Japanese Literature
1988 Washington Square Press
Finished on 7/30/08
Rating: 2/5 (Below Average)



The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it's a kitchen, if it's a place where they make food, it's fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate. White tile catching the light (ting! ting!).

Product Description

With the publication of Kitchen, the dazzling English-language debut that is still her best-loved book, the literary world realized that Yoshimoto was a young writer of enduring talent whose work has quickly earned a place among the best of contemporary Japanese literature. Kitchen is an enchantingly original book that juxtaposes two tales about mothers, love, tragedy, and the power of the kitchen and home in the lives of a pair of free-spirited young women in contemporary Japan. Mikage, the heroine, is an orphan raised by her grandmother, who has passed away. Grieving, Mikage is taken in by her friend Yoichi and his mother (who is really his cross-dressing father) Eriko. As the three of them form an improvised family that soon weathers its own tragic losses, Yoshimoto spins a lovely, evocative tale with the kitchen and the comforts of home at its heart.

In a whimsical style that recalls the early Marguerite Duras, "Kitchen" and its companion story, "Moonlight Shadow," are elegant tales whose seeming simplicity is the ruse of a very special writer whose voice echoes in the mind and the soul.


Bellezza loved this book and after reading her review, I thought I would, too. I was so surprised when she sent me a copy and I couldn't wait to read it. Unfortunately, it pains me to say that it just wasn't my cuppa tea. It was full of so much loneliness and hopelessness, that I struggled to continue reading to the end. I kept thinking I just needed to give it more time, but I found myself plodding along simply because my good friend was kind enough to send me the book.

I guess it's a case of "vanilla versus chocolate." I know Bellezza and I have quite a lot in common, but I'll bet she's a lover of chocolate ice cream. Personally, I prefer vanilla.

I would be very happy to pass on the kindness I was shown and send this to someone who thinks they might enjoy it. Just leave a comment by Wednesday night and I'll draw a name from the hat.

For further reading, go here for an interview with Banana Yoshimoto.

Loud and Clear

Loud and Clear by Anna Quindlen
Nonfiction - Essays
Finished on 8/27/07
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)
Nonfiction Challenge #4



In her first retrospective essay collection since Thinking Out Loud (1993), best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Quindlen continues to unscramble gnarly social issues with splendid clarity and pithiness, wit and compassion and uncommon common sense.... So true is Quindlen's moral compass, and so lucid, vital, and forward-looking are her insights, that her opinion pieces not only stand the test of time but also provide an invaluable gage of where we've been and where we're going....Quindlen is a tonic for mind and soul.
-Booklist

Quindlen . . . couldn't have picked a more apt title . . . Whether readers agree with Quindlen's opinions on everything from youth culture to gun control, these razor-sharp musings will open avenues of debate and discussion long after the book is closed. Quindlen is at the top of her game . . .
-Publishers Weekly

Fiction has always been my first choice in books. However, in recent years I've been reading quite a bit of nonfiction, specifically memoirs and collections of essays. I'm especially fond of those in which cooking, gardening, family and home are the primary material source. Anna Quindlen is both novelist and columnist (formerly for the New York Times and currently for Newsweek) and I've read most of her published works, so I was thrilled to receive this book from a dear friend last Christmas. It's the perfect sort of book to pick up and read a few essays here and there. (Or, what another friend refers to as reading in "sips and gulps.")

Quindlen divides the book into five categories: Heart (16), Mind (19), Body (12), Voice (4) and Soul (18) for a total of 69 essays. Perhaps the most moving of all, though, is the Preface in which she speaks about September 11, 2001.

I knew that something uniquely terrible was taking place. I also had reason to believe that everyone I cared for was safe: My husband across the Hudson at his office. The children at their schools. My friend in the hospital across town. It was difficult for us to talk to one another, of course, with the New York City telephone lines out, the tunnels and bridges shut down, and cyberspace hopelessly jammed. One of the mementos I have kept from that morning are three identical e-mails from our son at college, who could not get through on the date of his birthday or for three days afterward. Each one is dated September 11, 2001, and says in capital letters I REALLY NEED TO HEAR YOUR VOICE.

and

Most nights, housebreaking the puppy we had picked up the day after our son left for school, I would run into a fireman who was heading home after working the wreckage, his eyes burning bright in a grimy face, his hands nicked and bandaged. He would pet our dog, rub her ears and muzzle, finally crouch to hold her squirmy little body close, and by the time he rose for the rest of the walk home there would be bright tear tracks in the dirt on his face. I tried not to cry until he was gone.

There are so many wonderful essays in this collective work; I've dog-eared dozens of pages, the majority of which can be found in the Soul section. Essays such as "Life After Death" which deals with grief:

Grief remains one of the few things that has the power to silence us. It is a whisper in the world and a clamor within. More than sex, more than faith, even more than its usher death, grief is unspoken, publicly ignored except for those moments at the funeral that are over too quickly, or the conversations among the cognoscenti, those of us who recognize in one another a kindred chasm deep in the center of who we are.

Maybe we do not speak of it because death will mark all of us, sooner or later. Or maybe it is unspoken because grief is only the first part of it. After a time it becomes something less sharp but larger, too, a more enduring thing called loss.

Perhaps that is why this is the least explored passage: because it has no end. The world loves closure, loves a thing that can, as they say, be gotten through. This is why it comes as a great surprise to find that loss is forever, that two decades after the event there are those occasions when something in you cries out at the continuous presence of an absence, "An awful leisure," Emily Dickinson once called what the living have after death.

Then there's "Anniversary" in which she writes about the loss of a mother, also quite powerful and thought-provoking.

In "Weren't We All So Young Then?" Quindlen returns to the topic of 9/11:

People are changed forever by grief, and changed people change the way the world is, the kind of place it becomes. Getting on with life is not the same as getting over a loss.

I especially liked the following quote from "Leg Waxing and Life Everlasting":

The youth produced by scalpel and laser is of a particularly arid sort, as much like the bloom of the real thing as the decor of those funeral homes is like a real live living room. But if the abs are tight, the eyes unlined, the hands unspotted, the hairline intact, if fifty-five is the new forty, then can't the inevitable be, if not avoided, at least indefinitely deferred? The answer is, of course, no. As Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was said to have told a friend when she became ill, "Why in the world did I do all those push-ups?"

"Watching the World Go By" (an essay about reality tv) provides humor with lines such as:

People named Kimmi and Colby and Amber (who chooses the participants, the writers for One Life to Live?) balancing on rafts, living on goat brains, turning brown in the outback? This is a stunt, not survival.

And then, of course, the column about Harry Potter and readership in America ("Aha! Caught You Reading"):

The next time someone talks about the narrow interests of kids today, how they attend only to the raucous cry of the computer calling across a stretch of cable to its mate the Internet, remember this week. Remember how the boys and girls of America went gaga over a book, a real old-fashioned black-letters-on-white-paper book, how they waited in line for it at the mall, cradled it to their bony little chests and carried it into their bedrooms, slipped into its imaginary world with big eyes and open minds as children have done almost since Gutenberg put the pedal to the metal of the printing press.

There's so much more to this particular essay, but I hate to spoil it for those of you who wish to read the book yourself. Most of the essays are between three to four pages in length, which does pose a problem when trying to share favorite passages. Taken out of context, they have a tendency to lose their significance and power. So, buy the book. Read an essay or two every few days. Don't do what I did and read it like a novel. These need to be savored slowly. And don't forget your highlighter!

Note: Archival copies of Anna Quindlen's Newsweek column, "The Last Word," can be found here. If you enjoy her writing and have read through all 77 essays, you can set up a Google Alert for future columns.

The Birth House

The Birth House by Ami McKay
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 5/23/07
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)




From the author's website:

From the Publisher -

Tradition clashes with modernity in this unforgettable debut novel, set in a small Nova Scotia village in the early 20th century, that is reminiscent of the works of Annie Proulx and Chris Bohjalian.

As a child, Dora Rare, the first female in five generations of Rares, is taken under the wing of Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for storytelling and a kitchen filled with herbs. As she grows into adulthood, Dora becomes Miss Babineau's apprentice, and together the pair help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labour, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and even unfulfilling marriages.

But their idyllic community is threatened with the arrival of Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor armed with promised of sterile, painless childbirth. Soon some of the women begin to question the midwives' methods - an uncertainty that erupts in a war of gossip, accusations, and recriminations after a woman dies. Overshadowed by this powerful, determined male doctor, Dora must summon all her strength and wisdom to protect herself and the birthing rituals of her ancestors, and the village she loves.

An enthralling tale with deep resonance for today, The Birth House brings to light the struggles women have faced to control their own bodies, and to keep tradition alive in the face of modernity.


Excerpt:

My house became the birth house. That's what the women called it, knocking on the door, ripe with child, water breaking on the porch. First-time mothers full of questions, young girls in trouble, and seasoned women with a brood already at home. (I called those babies 'toesies,' because they were more than their mamas could count on their fingers.) They all came to the house, wailing and keening their babies into the world. I wiped the feverish necks with cool, moist cloths, spooned porridge and hot tea into their tired bodies, talked them back from outside of themselves.

Ginny, she had two…

Sadie Loomer, she had a girl here.

Precious, she had twins…twice.

Celia had six boys, but she was married to my brother Albert…Rare men always have boys.

Iris Rose, she had Wrennie…

All I ever wanted was to keep them safe.


Argh! I really hate it when this happens! I've read nothing but great reviews about The Birth House from various bloggers (Amelia, Sassymonkey, Sheri, Dovegreyreader, and Kailana) was thrilled to receive a beautiful hardcover copy a few months ago from the lovely Lotus in Canada. I put the book on my nightstand, waiting for the perfect time to start reading it. I should've know that May has never been a good month for reading anything other than mysteries and thrillers. I'm too busy puttering in the yard (it's amazing how fast the grass and weeds grow when it rains!), laying down fresh mulch and cleaning up after the long, cold winter. I always seem to have longer than usual "To Do" lists in May (birthdays, Mother's Day, clean the BBQ, service the A/C, clean the porch, think about cleaning the deck, yada yada yada) and now that I'm busy with my job at Barnes & Noble, my reading time has taken a bigger drop than the usual "spring fever" drop I generally experience this time of year. Thank goodness it picks back up again as summer progresses.

How's that for a long-winded explanation for the low rating for this book? I truly believe that my overall lack of enthusiasm for The Birth House is a result of bad timing. I had a tough time getting drawn into the narrative and actually considered giving up, but kept reminding myself that some of my favorite books (Atonement, The Book Thief, Life of Pi) took several chapters before grabbing my interest. So I stuck with it. And I did enjoy some parts more than others. The historical references, particularly those of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, were quite interesting and informative, and I enjoyed the friendships that developed between the members of the "Occasional Knitter's Society." I also enjoyed the epistolary device in the latter portion of the novel, as well as the inclusion of various journal entries, advertisements, and news clippings of the time.

And, I do have one lovely passage that I'd like to share. I'm going to omit a name in order to keep from spoiling part of the plot:

We failed to say goodbye until morning. And even now that he's left the house, his breathing is still here, in the shallow between my breasts, the wrinkle of my pillow. He has left me with a quiet, sure happiness that will not go away, and I don't think it matters if he ever says he loves me. I know him, have always known him. Same as I know he doesn't like too much sugar, not in his coffee, not in a girl. Same as I know he's never had patience for lies. Sin has many tools, but a lie has a handle to fit them all. Same as I know that tonight at midnight, or half past one, or whenever he sees that the rest of the Bay is asleep, [my omission] will make his way up the road to Spider Hill and lay his body next to mine, again.

I also enjoyed reading the following from the author's note:

When I was young, I used to watch my mother so I could learn from her. I loved sitting with her while she cooked, sewed or gardened, and even while she was putting on her makeup. One thing I remember well was her end-of-the-day ritual of emptying out her pockets onto her vanity. A spool of thread, a note from a friend, bobby pins, a recipe card, a pine cone I'd handed her as a gift, a torn-out picture from a magazine -- these treasures would sit on a mirrored tray, looking like they were ready to be presented to a queen. A reflection of her day, her art. When I sat down to write The Birth House, I realized that this was how I wanted to arrange my words, as well: by making a literary scrapbook out of Dora's days.

It truly pains me to write such a discouraging review for what many consider to be a great novel. Please don't let me dissuade you. I think it's one that deserves to be read and I hope everyone will disagree with my low rating. If anyone's interested, I'd love to pass the book on, so please leave me a comment with your request and I'll draw a name from the lot.

And do take a moment to visit Ami McKay's wonderful website! The "novelties" page is quite entertaining.

Deep in the Green

Deep in the Green: An Exploration of Country Pleasures by Anne Raver
Non-Fiction/Essays
Finished on 2/13/07
Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

The best way to get real enjoyment out of the garden is
to put on a wide straw hat, hold a little trowel in one hand
and a cool drink in the other, and tell the man where to dig.
Charles Barr

My name is Lesley and I’m a horticultural fraud. As much as I admire beautiful gardens, overflowing with colorful plants and decorative yard ornaments, I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy gardening nearly as much as cooking or reading. I don’t pore over seed catalogs during the dreary, dark, cold winter nights. I’ve never ordered ladybugs, praying mantis eggs, Japanese beetle traps, or cricket manure. (Cricket manure? Who knew?!) The closest I get to manure is when I come across a lovely little pile of poop left behind by a stray cat (or maybe it’s courtesy of the neighborhood possum). I don’t have a compost pile (shame on me) and I’ve only made one attempt (a complete failure) at germinating seeds. Other than an occasional effort to fertilize with a Miracle Grow canister attached to a garden hose, I’m really quite clueless when it comes to nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. Who can keep all those numbers straight? Was it 10-20-10 or 30-30-30? Oh, wait, isn’t that for motor oil? My garden philosophy is this: Dig a hole (or better yet, get strong, burly husband to dig a hole), dump some amended dirt from bag purchased from nursery (don't get me started on paying for dirt) in freshly dug hole, transplant healthy-looking plant, water, mulch. Open a cold beer (preferably a Shiner Bock) and hope for the best. If it doesn’t survive the elements (it gets very hot and windy here during the summer months) in spite of my watering and weeding regime, it simply wasn’t meant to be. I’m not going to spend a lot of time or energy (or money) on something that goes into seclusion for almost half the year.

All of that said, I was thrilled to receive Deep in the Green for my birthday this past year from a dear friend (and superb gardener). The cover is quite lovely, with a photograph of a rather fluffy feline perched on a stone wall. He looks rather regal, as though he’s admiring the beautiful perennial garden pictured.

From the author’s introduction:

This book isn’t so much about gardening as it is about making connections – to all the plants and creatures that populate the earth. It’s about noticing things, from the fish in a neighbor’s pond lying belly up after some pesticide truck sprayed the trees, to a line of lifeless sycamore on a street that was showered with salt to melt the ice of an endless winter.

It’s about the joy of obsession. Of gardeners who speak in loving tones to giant squashes and melons, and demand that their newspaper’s garden columnist ride from one end of the kingdom to the other to identify some mysterious weed. It’s about friends – who drive hundreds of miles to pull weeds and dig up bushes on the old family farm, and joyfully take over the kitchen to bake pies and make pesto and sit around the table drinking wine long after a proper farmer would be in bed.

And this is why I enjoyed the essays as much as I did. They aren’t all about gardening. Several are devoted to the author’s love and affection toward her father (Growing Old), her mother (One Life to Live), her dog, Molly (The Love of a Dog and My Old Dog), and her cat, Mr. Grey (Game for a Cat).

All 59 essays (each approximately four to five pages in length) were originally published in The New York Times and Newsday between 1985 and 1994. Rather than falling asleep mid-sentence while reading my current novel, I savored a few of Raver’s essays every night before turning out the light. I also enjoyed reading one or two before starting in on a new novel. A sort of palate cleanser, if you will.

A favorite passage:

It’s important to have a sense of place. To feel that you belong somewhere, to feel committed. For some people, place begins with another person and everything – from friends to the Japanese maple in the yard – grows from that. But sometimes, it works the other way. You find a place where you belong. And the people find you. Gathering mussels, picking beans, eating blackberry pie.

While not quite as good as Dominique Browning's Around the House and in the Garden, Deep in the Green is a delightful book that demands little from its reader and calls for future re-reads. Until such time, I’ll add it to the stack of reading material on our guest room nightstand. It’s perfect for a random perusal and I even have a fluffy feline to help set the mood.