The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs

I just finished The Year of Living Biblically by AJ Jacobs. Subtitle: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. I had already read Jacob's The Know it All (One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World). Here's what I can tell you about Jacobs:

1. He's a decent writer. Witty. Clever. Intelligent.
2. He isn't afraid to talk about his own insecurities and neuroses, which is nice, because his issues make my own insecurities and neuroses look farily normal. Comforting to find such humanity.
3. He obssessively pores over the Internet looking for blog posts about what people think about his book. (AJ, if you are reading this, leave a comment and I will send you and Julie and Jasper and Zane and Lucas some of my killer vegan peanut butter cookies. They're good even though I am not a vegan.)
4. He is the editor of Esquire, so he can not be depended on to edit out sketchy ideas or sketchy scenes or even his own sketchy thoughts. Since I am something of a prude about what I'll read---I skip passages when it looks questionable. I can't tell you for sure, but I'm usually correct, and what I skipped was sketchy.
5. I laugh out loud when I read his work. He is funny. Funny, funny, funny. If he were put in the same room with my brother Aaron, he would find his match for funny. So funny.

Having said that, I enjoyed the book. My favorite theme was that religion can't be something we just do and study---it really is about what we become because of what we know. And that holiness is found in the mundane.

Marianne, I think you'd like this one.

If you liked Guernsey

If you like Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Peel Society, you should try The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas. It's delightful. Not as good as Guernsey (in my opinion), but good all the same and worth reading. I'm going to try more Sandra Dallas someday and report back. I tried to do her Alice's Tulips and didn't care for it. But maybe that book was the runt of the litter. I'll give Dallas another chance.

*Have you met Charlie Ravioli? If not, you should. He's one funny guy.

There are many things I studied in graduate school that I haven't thought about since. But there are a few pearls that come back every now and then. One is the theoretical work of Wayne Booth, who wrote The Company We Keep. The gist is that when re read, we create a relationship with characters or authors, etc. Like . . . once you've met Alice in Wonderland, they you have a relationship with her, of sorts. That's the way simplified version, buy you get the idea.

But on that note, you need to meet Charlie Ravioli. He's one funny guy. I found him in the book Through the Children's Gate, by Adam Gopnik. Gopnik is a fantastic writer. This guy knows how to capitalize. He gets a little parenthesis happy---which is like speaking my language becuase I am (unedited) the queen of dashes. In this book, Gopnik writes a series of personal essays about his experiences returning back to the US after living in Paris for five years. I haven't read the whole book, but what I have read is superb. Funny. Insightful. Intelligent. Witty. Entertaining. Thought provoking. Good stuff so far. Can't vouch for all the content, but what I have seen is just fine.

Anyway. Charlie Ravioli appears in the essay "Bumping into Mr. Ravioli." It's worth finding the book in the library or going to Borders to sit in their comfy chairs just to read this chapter. Really. It's good.

So go read it. And then come back and let me know that you know him so I can say something like, "I felt like I was talking to Charlie Ravioli . . . " and you'll know what I'll mean and we'll both sigh and say, "Yeah. That Charlie Ravioli. It's like that sometimes."

I do this with Emmanuel Levinas and my cousin Dave. We nod. And we get it.

But trust me. Go meet Charlie Ravioli.

Seer and the Sword, City of Masks

I don't get much time to browse in the library anymore. When I take the kids, I spend most of my time trying to keep the kids from pulling the books off the shelves. So when I want new books, I have to look fast. Usually I come up with duds, but sometimes I find some good stuff. Which is what I was lucky to find on my last trip---really good stuff. I was in the mood for more YA lit, so I pulled two from the shelf. Both good. Both well done.

The first is The Seer and the Sword by Victoria Hanley. Fantasy, with a good strong female character---which isn't what you always find so that was a nice suprise. Nice writing. Good plot. Little nuggets about human nature. Good. Perfect for a tween, nice escape if you are an adult and you just want a pleasant YA fantasy. There are more in the series and I'm glad. If I get lonely for the characters, I'll go read the rest.

The second is The City of Masks by Mary Hoffman. Fantasy again, this one with an alternate world much like Venice, Italy. The fun thing about this book is the it delves into 1700 Italy (sort of). Not history heavy, which wouldn't work in a YA novel anyway, but there's enough truth about the past to make it authentic and interesting. Hoffman likes Italy and you can tell. This book also had another delightful heroine with a strong mind and spirit. Yet another book in a series. Yet another series I wouldn't blanch to read.

So there are two books that I would've recommended to the tween crowd who want something clean, well written, interesting, and worth reading.

Bravo, Hanley and Hoffman. Well done.

(End note: If you don't like fantasty, don't understand fantasy, and don't ever want to read fantasy, skip these. It's OK. The authors will never know and I won't be offended.)

Wild Swans by Jung Chang

I've been plowing through Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang for some time now. Writing is good, and Jung's insights, about humanity in general in the context of Chinese history, are good as well.

But it's long. It's way long.

It's way, way, way long.

I don't have a problem with long books, just as I don't have a problem with long conversations. But both need to end when it's time to end. And when I'm falling asleep either having a conversation or reading a book, it's probably time to just say, "Oh, that was lovely to see you. I'll be going now."

The basis for the book is that Jung's grandmother was a concubine during the end of the reign of the warlords in China. Her mother was a part of the Communist revolution, and Jung herself experienced Mao's cultural revolution and the aftermath (as heretofore mentioned in the bland Red Scarf Girl). Jung chronicles their lives and loves, their living and their struggles. Their determination and their strength. Great plot.

It's not that I'm bored with the book, I've just had enough. I've eaten all the turkey and stuffing I can hold and gone back for seconds on chocolate pie. Finite. Ja acabou. Ja esta. I'm done, thank you, that was lovely.

If you are a purist who needs to know how it ends, I'll tell you because I've skimmed it. Jung's family gets old and dies and Jung moves to London. Where she is happy.

Once again, if you are interested in Chinese history, this would be good for you. And it's fine with me if you stop at about page 360. That's about where the meal ended for me.

Meg in Sheridan

Meg in Sheridan,

I keep meaning to mention . . . if your library doesn't have the books that you are looking for, you can write them a letter and suggest they purchase specific titles. (Some libraries have this feature in their library websites.) I find that most libraries (and Netflix, for example) are looking for things that people want to read (or watch). So if you suggest, maybe they will listen.

Good luck!

Transferring * books

Pre-entry note: As most of you know, I have a blog about our family that's on a private distribution list. On that blog, I have previously written entries about what I was reading. I'm going to transfer all the book entries to this blog. So if you've been following that blog, and those entries, you can skip these. You already read them. I'm putting them here so all the book entries are in the same place---as requested by Kristen. Now all the book entries will be in the same place. I will mark them with a * in the title.

Laurie R. King is one of my new favorite authors. I've been re-reading her Mary Russell series (just finished books one and two, now I'm on to three), and they are absolutely delicious. Great plots. Crisp dialogue. Intelligent references. Fantastic main character. King has brought to life a strong, witty, determined main character in Mary Russell. I always like it when I find stong, well written female protagonists in any genre, but it's all the more satisfying to find them in mystery/suspense. But I wouldn't call it a "woman's book" any more than I'd call other books "men's books". It's just a good book.

But on that note . . . here are three "women's genre" books that are stereotypically marketed to women and drive me crazy.

1. MEN ARE ALL EVIL books. A few months ago I chose seven books from a recommended reading list put together by the San Jose Book Club Convention. I got them from my library and began to skim. They all sounded the same. Unhappy, depressed woman in India. Unhappy, depressed woman in Mexico. Unhappy, depressed woman in Minnesota. And all of them had serious, serious "We hate men" undertones. This deeply bothered me. I returned all the books.

2. WOMEN ARE OBSESSED WITH FOOD books. I've found this in two places---a well known mystery series and one of the books that Dessert Book lauded last summer as a good book for book clubs. The second book was formulaic. There are five women. Chapter one: Woman one has a problem. Gets together with the other four. Long descriptive passages about what everyone is eating. Women solve the problem. Chapter Two: Another woman has a problem. Gets together with the other four. Long descriptive passages about what everyone is eating. Women solve the problem. Chapter Three: Woman three has a problem . . . etc.

I got sick of reading what everyone was eating. Does the author thing that her readership are perpetual dieters who can vicariously get satisfaction from the food that other people ingest? Or is the assumed readership subsisting on funeral potatoes and jello and therefore entranced with words such as "proscuitto", "tarragon", and "escarole". I didn't finish that book either.

3. WOMEN WHINE books. Here I have to mention an unfortunate experience with one my favorite authors, Orson Scott Card. I really, really like Card's writing. But not in his Women of the Covenant series. I came to these books hoping to see what I knew Card was cabable of giving: well developed, strong, interesting characters.

But in the book I read, the one about Bilhah, Zilpah, Rachel, and Leah, I grew more and more flustered as the novel wore on. The characters just weren't very interesting. The only one who seemed to have two functional synapses in her head was Bilhah. Leah just whined and whined. After about chapter three, Leah would start in on her emotional blathering and I would skip to the next section.

I felt like Card had betrayed me. Why didn't he include intelligent characters in this series as well? He's fully capable. I've seen him do it with women and with men. I think I'll give one more of the books in this series a try. But if I don't find an intelligent heroine, I'm going back to the Ender series. (Maybe he should tackle the story of Deborah, the prophetess. No whiney women there, neither in Deborah nor in Jael.)

Another author, new on the scene, that I'd recommend is Brandon Sanderson. I met Brandon in a writing class at BYU and he has developed into quite an author. His first book, Elantris (which I had the pleasure to peek at in manuscript form) was good, but his second book, Mistborn, is even better. Yet another intelligent, captivating female main character. I look forward to seeing great things from Brandon, and I can't wait to read the sequel to Mistborn.

But I digress. Back to Laurie R. King. She's great and I give her series two thumbs up. I found very little questionable content (if there is some, I either can't remember it or I didn't find it offensive). I hope there are more books to come.