Happy Birthday to The Phantom Tollbooth

A new favorite of mine is celebrating it's 50th year in print!

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is such a delight to read that I purchased it and plan to read it again and again. For anyone who loves the English language, this book will be a winner for you. It's clever, tongue-in-cheek method of making its point is linguistic absurdity at its best. And I didn't make that up, NPR offered a piece on this milestone.

Listen to the show here, and pick up this book!

A Vintage Affair by Isabel Wolff

Summary:

Every dress has a history, and so does Phoebe...
Phoebe Swift always dreamt of opening her own vintage dress shop. She imagined every detail, from the Vivienne Westwood skirts hanging next to satin gowns, to sequinned prom dresses adorning the walls.

At the launch of Village Vintage, Phoebe feels the tingle of excitement as customers snap up the fairytale dresses. Her dream has come true, but a secret from her past is casting a shadow over her new venture.

Then one day she meets Therese, an elderly Frenchwoman with a collection to sell, apart from one piece that she won't part with...

As Therese tells the story of the little blue coat, Phoebe becomes aware of a profound connection with her own life, one that will help her heal the pain of her past and allow her to love again.

My take: 4 looks
When I read The Secret Lives of Dresses, a member of my online reading group suggested this book. She was right!

Not only does this book make you like the characters (I really want to hang out with Annie and slap the face of Roxy), it makes you want to scour the local boutiques for some vintage pieces to mix and match with your everyday wear. So many designers were named that I was sure Wolff made them up. I felt compelled to Google them, and was pleasantly surprised that they were all real! This was a winner for me, and highly recommended.

Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Summary:
A thrilling epic about an ancient clash reignited in our time, between a hidden society and heaven's darkest creatures. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Genesis 6:5 Sister Evangeline was just a girl when her father entrusted her to the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in upstate New York. Now, at twenty-three, her discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller to the late mother superior of Saint Rose Convent plunges Evangeline into a secret history that stretches back a thousand years: an ancient conflict between the Society of Angelologists and the monstrously beautiful descendants of angels and humans, the Nephilim. For the secrets these letters guard are desperately coveted by the once-powerful Nephilim, who aim to perpetuate war, subvert the good in humanity, and dominate mankind. Generations of angelologists have devoted their lives to stopping them, and their shared mission, which Evangeline has long been destined to join, reaches from her bucolic abbey on the Hudson to the apex of insular wealth in New York, to the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris and the mountains of Bulgaria. Rich in history, full of mesmerizing characters, and wondrously conceived, Angelology blends biblical lore, the myth of Orpheus and the Miltonic visions of Paradise Lost into a riveting tale of ordinary people engaged in a battle that will determine the fate of the world.

My take: 4 looks
I liked this book quite a bit. It felt like a first-time novel, which it is for author Trussoni. The characters were nicely developed, to the point that I felt sympathy for the lead "bad guy". There were a few things theologically that crossed with my doctrinal beliefs, but because of the good writing, I was able to put those aside easily.

Perhaps I am jaded by other mysteries that I have read, but I was waiting, perhaps hoping, for a little more intrigue. One of the nuns was a spy, one of the Angelologist was a traitor, something like that. I trusted no one, but perhaps that was the point of the author.

The ending was rather abrupt. Like driving off a cliff when you can see the destination. I checked this one out of the library for my Nook, and had to look at the physical book at the book store to make sure that I had downloaded the entire thing. It is obvious that there will be a sequel, but the ending was a complete turnoff for me, and may cause me to not read the next one.

All-in-all, I would recommend this book, reading with a theological grain of salt and knowing that you will be left with more than a few questions.

Charms for the Easy Life by Kaye Gibbons

Summary:
A family without men, the Birches live gloriously offbeat lives in the lush, green backwoods of North Carolina. Radiant, headstrong Sophia and her shy, brilliant daughter, Margaret, possess powerful charms to ward off loneliness, despair, and the human misery that often beats a path to their door. And they are protected by the eccentric wisdom and muscular love of the remarkable matriarch Charlie Kate, a solid, uncompromising, self-taught healer who treats everything from boils to broken bones to broken hearts. Sophia, Margaret, and Charlie Kate find strength in a time when women almost always depended on men, and their bond deepens as each one experiences love and loss during World War II. Charms for the Easy Life is a passionate, luminous, and exhilarating story about embracing what life has to offer ... even if it means finding it in unconventional ways. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

My Take: 5 looks
Even though this is a novel I will most likely not read again, I liked it so much that I will add all of this author's books to my TBR list. I enjoyed this book very much. The strong female characters spoke to me. They were strong, loving, sensitive, flawed and very believable.

The writing style was just my style. It was smart, funny, poignant and became a real voice as I read. The characters shared similarities, but were very different. They were each sympathetic, frustrating and full-bodied. I loved each one.

The book ended in a very nice and realistic way: it just ended. Much like life goes from one chapter to the next. Readers have become so used to every mystery being solved, every identity being revealed and every rock being overturned. In "Charms" there were unanswered questions, loose threads and every bit of realism that day-to-day life holds. I closed this book feeling very satisfied, and that is the best review a book can receive.

Great House by Nicole Krauss

Summary:
A powerful, soaring novel about a stolen desk that contains the secrets, and becomes the obsession, of the lives it passes through. For 25 years, a solitary American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police; one day a girl claiming to be his daughter arrives to take it away, sending her life reeling. Across the ocean in London, a man discovers a terrifying secret about his wife of almost 50 years. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer is slowly reassembling his father's Budapest study, plundered by the Nazis in 1944. These worlds are anchored by a desk of enormous dimension and many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or give it away. In the minds of those it has belonged to, the desk comes to stand for all that has disappeared in the chaos of the world — children, parents, whole peoples and civilizations. Nicole Krauss has written a hauntingly powerful novel about memory struggling to create a meaningful permanence in the face of inevitable loss.

My take: 1 look
I agree with another reviewer in her surprise that this book won an award. While there is supposed to be a common thread running through the book, the desk, I found the writing to be disjointed, unrelated and completely boring. All of the characters were one-dimensional, unsympathetic and easy to leave.

I have another book on my list by Krauss, and will read it, but if I have the same impression, it will be the last book by this author that I read.

Negrophilia by Erik Rush

 

Summary:
Negrophilia studies the undue and inordinate affinity for blacks (as opposed to antipathy toward them) that has been promoted by activists, politicians and the establishment press for the past 40 years and which has fostered an erroneous perception of blacks, particularly in America. The book dissects the dynamic of race relations and race politics with an emphasis on same since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, how these are likely to develop given a Barack Obama presidency, and how conscientious Americans may discern the deeper truths of these matters and thus develop healthier perceptions.

My take: 4 looks
I am giving this one four stars because of the author's true voice in the midst of scoff and scorn. Mr. Rush has it nicely summarized: the only thing keeping blacks down is other blacks. He sees it for what it is, and calls it perfectly. Written at a higher reading level than most non-fiction I've read, sort of like a sociology thesis. I'm glad to find someone in the black community who believes like I do.

The Myth of You & Me by Leah Stewart

Summary:
When Cameron was fifteen, she and Sonia were best friends—so close it seemed nothing would ever come between them. Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet. Nearly a decade after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron receives an unexpected letter from her old friend. Despite Oliver’s urging, she doesn’t reply. But when he passes away, Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her. The Myth of You and Me captures the intensity of a friendship as well as the real sense of loss that lingers after the end of one. Searingly honest and beautiful, it is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend.

My Take: 3 looks
Cameron is a woman used to being on her own. Or is she? Sonia was her tried and true best friend. So why was it so easy to leave Sonia at a gas station on the interstate?
Interesting book, interesting characters, and a premise that happens to us all: the loss of a friendship. I liked the book, found it very easy to read, but it didn't engage me enough to give it 4 stars

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Summary:
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding new work circles Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, but the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other people whose paths intersect with theirs in the San Francisco 1970s music scene, the demimonde of Naples, New York at many points along the way from the pre-Internet nineties to a postwar future, and on a catastrophic safari into the heart of Africa. We meet Lou, Bennie’s charismatic, careless mentor; Scotty, the young musician who slipped off the grid; the uncle facing a failed marriage who goes in search of seventeen-year-old Sasha when she disappears into Italy; and the therapist on whose couch she dissects darker compulsions. A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about time, survival, and the electrifying sparks ignited at the seams of our lives by colliding destinies. Sly, surprising, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

My review: 1 look
This book won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?! This is what the Pulitzer Prize Board said: "inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed." Allow me to translate this for you: rockers getting old, hating it and fighting it every step of the way.

HBO is making a series out of it?! Well, they made a movie out of one of my most-hated books, White Oleander, so I can't say this surprises me. This book could read like a bunch of related short stories, so a series is probably not a bad idea. Especially when you consider the garbage on television now.

My take on this book is that it's sophomoric, pandering and whiney. Think "Housewives of New Jersey" with record contracts. You may want to read this one because of the hype, but I wouldn't recommend it unless every other book at the library is gone.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Summary:
The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But it takes meeting a mysterious vendor at the flower market for her to realise what's been missing in her own life, and as she starts to fall for him, she's forced to confront a painful secret from her past, and decide whether it's worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness. "The Language of Flowers" is a heartbreaking and redemptive novel about the meaning of flowers, the meaning of family, and the meaning of love.

My View: 3 looks (WARNING: Spoilers!!)
I really struggled with this review because I liked the book quite a lot; however, there were a few things that kept me from giving it four looks. First of all, I felt that the story of the fostering system was (unfortunately) on track. I grew up in a stable, loving home and cannot fathom the displacement, solitude and loneliness that must come from being a ward of the state. Couple that with people who should never be foster parents and you have a hard story to tell. the story of Victoria's childhood was handled with compassion and I understood why she escalated in bad behavior. that was excellent character development.

However, Elizabeth's breakdown was completely out of the blue and I didn't buy it at all. Her apparent love for Victoria and her desire to become a family, which falls apart the day of the adoption? Contrived, forced and theatrical. This alone cost a look from my review.

The relationship with Grant and Victoria was completely lovely, as well as her trepidation over Hazel. It was handled truthfully with raw emotion and was a very probable scenario.

I will read more by this author because I enjoyed the book. There was much, much more good than bad. Much more to relish than to forget. I wonder what kind of flower that would be...

The Actor and the Housewife by Shannon Hale

Summary:
A very different kind of fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Shannon Hale. What if you were to meet the number-one person on your laminated list—you know, that list you joke about with your significant other about which five celebrities you’d be allowed to run off with if ever given the chance? And of course since it’ll never happen it doesn’t matter… Mormon housewife Becky Jack is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets celebrity hearththrob Felix Callahan. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened…though nothing has happened. It isn’t sexual. It isn’t even quite love. But a month later Felix shows up in Salt Lake City to visit and before they know what’s hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky’s husband is pretty cool about it. H er children roll their eyes. Her neighbors gossip endlessly. But Felix and Becky have something special…something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it? A magical story, The Actor and the Housewife explores what could happen when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life and changes everything.

My review: 2 looks
I know, I know. Only 2 looks? I almost put this one down, but it was so easy to read that I decided to skim through some parts and finish it. *spoiler alert*

If you can get past the fantastical meeting of these two, the "witty banter" between the Felix and Becky was cute and believable about 1/3 of the way into the book. Then it just became rote and sophomoric. Their relationship never seemed to grow or develop in the 15 or so years they were friends. They talked every day, then they didn't talk for months. Becky felt secure in their friendship, then she suspects he'll never call again. Mike is alive and well, gets cancer and goes into remission all in the same chapter. Does Felix love Becky platonically or romantically? Is Becky "cheating" on her husband because her best friend is a man?

It gets cumbersome, boring and completely predictable, right down to the "we love each other, but not that way" ending. At 339 pages, it's about 100 pages too long. Maybe 150 pages. Maybe it should have been a short story...

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Summary:
Waging a fierce competition for which they have trained since childhood, circus magicians Celia and Marco unexpectedly fall in love with each other and share a fantastical romance that manifests in fateful ways.

My Opinion: 5 looks
The summary provided above (copied from the Shelfari site) is grossly inadequate to describe this book. I read the other reviews (again, on Shelfari) and although I am tempted to respond to them here, will refrain from doing so.

This book was magical. It was transporting. It was fantastical. I hated ... hated to see it end. I read pages over again because I was so enamored by the situation, response, action or pure dialogue.

The writing is superb; quite a feat for a debut novel. This is an author born to write. I was in the circus, knew the characters and felt their emotions. I was tricked, surprised, delighted and finally, completely satisfied. This is a book I will purchase to read again, and that is the highest compliment I can give.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

Summary:
A bit on the elderly side (he turns 201 in March), but otherwise in the pink of health. The nonstop sex and exercise he’s still getting probably contribute to that, as does his diet: unusual amounts of flesh and blood (at least some from friends and relatives). Jake, of course, is a werewolf, and with the death of his colleague he has now become the only one of his kind. This depresses Jake to the point that he’s been contemplating suicide. Yet there are powerful forces who for very different reasons want—and have the power—to keep Jake alive. 

Here is a powerful new version of the werewolf legend—mesmerizing and undeniably sexy, and with moments of violence so elegantly wrought they dazzle rather than repel. But perhaps its most remarkable achievement is to make the reader feel sympathy for a man who can only be described as a monster—and in doing so, remind us what it means to be human. One of the most original, audacious, and terrifying novels in years.

My review:
1 look
I am no prude, but when I got to yet another description of anal sex, I put this one down. I mean, good grief, we get it already: werewolves like sex. Putting this stinker on my "do not bother" list. Because I hated it so much, I'm pretty sure Hollywood will turn it into a movie.

Reading same author

My friend Debbie (actually, she is the wife of my pastor, my Sunday School teacher, fellow book-lover, and becoming a friend) and I love the author Charles Martin. He writes Christian fiction, which I usually do not read because I find it heavy-handed, preachy and a little haughty. His writing style, however, is so real, honest and personal that I find that, not only do I enjoy his books, I think of them long after I turn the last page. Christianity is sprinkled throughout the book as a normal part of a character's life, along with the ups, downs, struggles and victories that accompany faith in Jesus for all believers.

With that said, Debbie and I stoked in one another lately a renewed desire to read Martin. She had a few and I had a few, so we compared and swapped. Last night when we met, we both agreed that to read one author's books back-to-back is not always a good thing. Debbie likened it to eating your favorite meal three times a day for ten days. While it's as deliciously prepared on the tenth day, it's not as tasty as it was that first day.

With that said, I put down the book I was reading (Where the River Ends) and will go on to another author. Authors are to be sprinkled, not poured.

Anne Rice's continued struggle with faith

I heard a story on NPR earlier this week about Anne Rice's decision to "quit Christianity." From her web site:

For those who care, and I understand if you don't: Today I quit being a Christian. I'm out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being "Christian" or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to "belong" to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten ...years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

07/28/10 As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I'm out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of ...Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

07/28/10 My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn't understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.

07/29/10 I quit Christianity in the name of Christ on this page so that I could tell my readers I was not complicit in the things that organized religion does. I never dreamed others would be so interested, or that they would feel the need to talk about their own religious struggles. But they do. And the public conversation on... this is huge, and I think important. 

I must say that I agree with about 99.9% of the things she says. I would say that most thinking Christians realize that organized religion will naturally contain the same faults that mankind shoulders. If you expect the organization to be perfect, you are sure to be disappointed. However, the gist is to follow Christ while in the midst of other believers.

Rice is correct that too many people tend to put a spokesperson or leader on the pedestal, and it's clear that God knew this would happen. That's why He makes it clear that the leaders and teachers will be held to a higher standard.

To publicly eschew organized religion is a bit haughty and a sure sign of spiritual immaturity. To be so disillusioned with it is to mean that you put too much faith in it to begin with. Keep your sights on the Son and you will not be disappointed.

The 5 Best Banned Books Turned Films

From the Random House Publishing web site, these are "The 5 Best Banned Books Turned Films":

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
In American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis imaginatively explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

What Ellis intended to be a satirical look at the yuppie overindulgence of the 1980s offended many, and guaranteed American Psycho a place on The American Civil Liberties Union’s list of most frequently challenged books published from 1990 through 2000. Australia took their distaste a step further, shrink-wrapping American Psycho, and preventing readers under eighteen from being able to purchase the book. Christian Bale starred in the 2000 film adaptation and did not hold back in bringing the sordid descriptions of Bateman’s murders to the big screen. Though it was initially branded with the cinematic scarlet letter rating of NC-17, it was eventually downgraded to an R-rating after the film’s director, Mary Harron, agreed to tone down some scenes.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?

It is no surprise that Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel Lolita has become one of the most challenged books of all time. By the time Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film adaptation hit theaters, five countries had already banned the book, citing obscenity. Due to the lingering sensitivities around the theme of pedophilia, Kubrick changed Lolita’s age from twelve to fourteen and cleaned up other suggestive scenes from the book. This resulted in Kubrick ultimately using only a small portion of Nabokov’s original work in the film. Almost thirty-five years after the original film, “Lolita” received a re-adaptation featuring Jeremy Irons and Dominique Swain. Though many are loyal to Kubrick’s classic, we think that the modern film adaptation succeeded in being more faithful to Nabokov’s original story.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A vicious fifteen-year-old "droog" is the central character of this 1963 classic, whose stark terror was captured in Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film of the same title. In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom. When the state undertakes to reform Alex—to "redeem" him—the novel asks, "At what cost?" This edition includes the controversial last chapter not published in the first edition and Burgess's introduction "A Clockwork Orange Resucked."

Soon after Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film adaptation of “A Clockwork Orange” was released, protestors started targeting Kubrick and his family with death threats, prompting him to request that Warner Brothers withdraw the British distribution. The graphic violence and rapes featured in the film did not sit well with British authorities, who banned the film after a string of copycat incidents that were inspired by the film rocked the country.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Since its publication in 1954, William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, about a group of English schoolboys stranded on a deserted island following a plane crash, has been both lauded and challenged. Though Golding won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983, many continued to challenge The Lord of the Flies for reasons ranging from profanity to violence. Parents have often been the most vocal group to oppose The Lord of the Flies, given the subject matter of civilized schoolchildren descending into savagery being taught to their children. Lord of the Flies has received two film adaptations: The first in 1963 and most recently in 1990. We are of the opinion that the original film trumps the modern adaptation, as it follows Golding’s story better by featuring a British cast, in addition to keeping with the ambiguity of the characters, making it not immediately apparent which are “good” versus “bad".

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining reproduction, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now...