Book Love

OK so I don't write about all the books that I read, mainly because I enjoy them...but I don't always devour them....

I finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society last night and....as a friend of mine says *le sigh* it was just great.

It was one of those books that I started rationing how many pages I would read at night because I wasn't really sure that I wanted it to end.

It is a book basically made up of letters back and forth between post WWII occupation Guernsey Island, and a writer and her editor. I loved all the characters, but mostly, I loved the main character Juliet...

I think mainly, I love reading books where the leading woman is strong and snarky, but not in a beat you over the head with an inner message, stereotypical "strong woman" way.

I have to be honest, I really get tired of needy, love sick women. I kinda want to slap them (I know I know, we have discussed my angry hand)

But really, I don't want to read about obedient, love sick, women all the time...that said, I also get tired of the Barracuda, independent, portrayed as a man, woman too....neither are realistic to me. I enjoy reading about women who are a little of everything, because ultimately, that is who we all are. A mixture of strength and weakness, intelligence and dumb-ass, sex appeal and comfortable shoes....

So hurrah! I like the story, hope you guys will too...anyone else read it?

Ahhhh The Books of Yester Year...

...before we worried about damaged psyches and litigation.

I was pawing through some things in my attic the other day and came across two children’s books. One was my favorite book as a kid, the other, one that my mom gave me when I was in college.

Today though, I am only going to talk about “The Littlest Rabbit.” It was my favorite book as a little kid. I read it so many times that the pages are worn thin, and of course my name is written all over it.

(Like everything else I owned...or didn't, like the bathroom counter that I carved my name into with a ball point pen. Apparently I had a lot of time to sit there and think of doing that. I also wrote the ABC's on the side of the counter down stairs. I think I may have been in my 20's when my dad finally had to repair it to move, and I STILL got in trouble.)

Being the youngest in the family, you can see the draw that I would have had to a story like this… The heart warming story of a tiny rabbit that everyone picked on, who when he finally got big, had his day of reckoning with those big rabbits. It was OK though, because he was a nice rabbit to all the little rabbits telling them that he too was once the littlest rabbit, and look, now he kicks some ass.

You know, it’s a tear jerker. lol. But it was my prized possession.

I found it, thinking that it would be fun to read to Henry, until I read it. Um...yeah, I am holding off. I think he would take the "punching one and kicking the other" a little too to heart and my girls may get upset if I encouraged that side of him. I did read it to my sensible eldest...her response?

"This was your favorite book? Where did it come from? People get beat up in it."

I am all “Yeah I KNOW, You’re the oldest....you don’t get it.”

I AM mature aren’t I!?!

Markus Zusak

Ok have I told you how much I like this author and this book???? YUP, and this just makes me like him more.

An Abundance of Katherines

A quote from the book: (Bits and pieces, pieced together…I know, I am an editors nightmare, but I tried to make it make sense.)

"If the future is forever, he thought, then eventually it will swallow us all up."... "The future will erase everything--there's no level of fame or genius that allows you to transcend oblivion. The infinite future makes that kind of mattering impossible."

“But there's another way. There are stories."... "And he found himself thinking that maybe stories don't just make us matter to each other - maybe they're also the only way to the infinite mattering he'd been after for so long.

And Collin thought: Because...even if it is a dumb story, telling it changes other people just the slightest little bit, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change. And that infinitesimal change ripples outward - ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter, maybe less than a lot, but always more than none."

Those of you who know me, (especially those who have known me the longest) must realize when I got to this page and read it, how big I smiled.

My whole life is full of stories, half of why I write my blog is because I believe honestly, that I was about to burst from story overload. I have been writing a journal since I was in second grade; a sort of desperate attempt to fling my stories out in to the world like some sort of wildflower seeds, that in some remote way, I hoped would take root somewhere. Somehow, I don’t believe that it ever mattered to me where they were, or who, cultivated them. It was that I told them. And to this day, I get no greater pleasure than hearing the relentless teasing about my antics, my plays, and my characters from my youth...because, well, they are my stories, and clearly, they are living on. (Especially Juanita, my pseudo-self in middle school. But that is just a whole OTHER story, for another day!)

Yeee-Haw, a good book. My girls will most certainly be reading it when they get a little older...I kind of have to get to the birds and bees first...Not that there is much of it, but somehow, I think I should probably go over that instead of depending on "back of the bus learning."

I finished a book!!!!!

I know I know, it IS totally awesome huh? amongst the death trips of my son, the fighting of my girls, the mounds of laundry and dishes...I finally finished "The Book Thief" -Markus Zusak Recommended by Leila.

I just want to say, it was just a great read. A wonderful heart filling book. I am not a good book reviewer, it ain't my thing, but I can say that it was kind of a cool perspective. The book is written by Death. But I have to say, no one else could have been the voice of this book. It read beautifully, and even though you kind of know where it is going...because you know...it is DEATH writing, it was gripping and lovely. If you click on the link to the Book Thief above, you can read the introduction...it had me from hello!

So anyway, good read, if you are up for it.

I think that I may be sending my self into a deep depression on purpose. I am not sure why I feel the need to do this, since this winter in Maine could achieve this quite sufficiently on its own.

In the past couple weeks I have finished both the Kite Runner, and A Thousand Splendid Suns, as well as watched God Grew Tired of Us, and Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. Which was sort of like standing there and asking someone to punch me in the stomach repeatedly.

As some of you may have read in my profile, guilt is one of my hobbies...I don't know if it is a hobby per-say, it certainly comes to me through the veins. I choose to think of my Italian heritage as supplying most of it, and being a mother finishing off my ample supply. This is neither here nor there, except to say that a person who possesses my high threshold of unidentified guilt along with my incredibly wimpy limitations for seeing pain in the world, coupled with my need to control the Universe, should really not try to endure such books and movies, and much less all at the same time. As anxiety and depression run in my family, I think I am tempting fate a bit here!


But I did it, so now, as these things typically do, I am feeling all hot and bothered to go and save Sudan, or free Tibet, or befriend a woman in a burkah who needs some saving. Which clearly, at some point I will have to admit, I cannot do because somewhere along the line I got fired as General Manager of the Universe.

We are so blessed to have been born here. And while I still shush my mother if she mentions Alkeida** in a conversation for fear that W will send in the troops after hearing it on my tapped phones...I really don't live in a whole lot of fear. A little fear of taking Henry to swimming lessons now. (Yes, I do understand how menial my life is becoming!)


So I sit on my couch in a lake of tears and admiration for all the real people and characters of these movies and books, yelling a the books and TV, because somewhere in my screwed up psyche, I think they really can hear me. Feeling guilty about having taken longer than I should have for lunch to finish my book, Because surely I should have been doing something more useful with my time, like, I don't know, writing to my senator, collecting signatures, setting up peace rallies, building an arc...something...

But in the end, I will put it all on my to-do list...after I tackle the mounds of laundry that are scheduling their own coup d'etat and will march down the stairs and smother me in their smelliness at any moment. See? This is why all the guilt...

**Just to note, I do know that it is Al Qaeda, but I was trying to stick with the theme of W...

I finished "Every Mother is a Daughter"

I am not trying to copy Leila* here (no worries Leila, I couldn't hold a candle!) but I figured instead of spending all my time being sarcastic, I will add a little something about things I have read etc... You know, so you all think I have some semblance of intelligence!

I finished listening to Every Mother is a Daughter , (yes, I do listen to books around the house or in my car...it is NOT a cop out...it is a busy moms way of staying involved in literature...so says I! But in my defense, I still read some too, it just takes a long time.)

I would love to have something sarcastic to say about this book, but I don't. Being 35 and lucky enough to have a 92 year old grandmother to take care of, also being lucky enough to have a mom, (who would kick my butt if I said how old she is on here,) and the great fortune of having two lovely daughters, I devoured this book whole heartedly. Not always identifying with one character over another, but with little bits of both of them as they wove their way through writing this book.

It lead me to wonder about what my mother would write about me, of who I am. Or what we would have to write about if we were to write a book together. It made me look at my daughter and realize that she is going to grow up and at some point have to take care of me, and what would she say about that? What would be her memories of my strengths and weaknesses be? What observations would she make about my life, that I would have never seen as having impact?

Perri Klass, and Sheila Solomon Klass, the mother and daughter that wrote this book are both, obviously, writers, and both have lived extraordinary lives, of travel, adventure, and humor. Lives truly rich in academia, which led me to realize the opulence of my own childhood. Not in monetary wealth, but a life that was steeped in educational pursuits, travel and the desire of my parents to open my eyes and take in the world around me and all that it has to offer.

So no snark here today, if you are a mom, or a daughter, it is worth a read. Take a minute like I did, to laugh at the idiosyncrasies of people, the dysfunction of all our families, and swell with the emotion of it all. In the end, those links and bonds that we build with our families and pass on to the following generations, are our mark on this world. They are our legacy, and they are precious.


* Leila is a friend I work with at the library, who is Uber smart, (to use one of her words,) reads like, 400 books a day, and then writes an incredible blog about them. In comparison on the book front, I am the kid in the back row stretching my bubble gum out to see how far it will go and getting it stuck all over my fingers... But she never makes me feel that way, so I love her anyway!]