Books and Movies

First of all, click over to this post and enter to win this awesome book:

Guernica by Dave Boling

As for what I’m reading - well, I’m in between books right now. I tried reading this:

When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale

I couldn’t do it. I made it to page 50 before I gave up. The premise is intriguing: “Nine-year-old Lawrence is the man in his family. He carefully watches over his willful little sister, Jemima, and his mother, Hannah. When Hannah becomes convinced that their estranged father is stalking them, the family flees London and heads for Rome, where Hannah lived happily as a young woman. For Lawrence, fascinated by stories of popes and emperors, Rome is an adventure. Though they are short of money, and move from home to home, staying with his mother’s old friends, little by little their new life seems to be taking shape. But the trouble that brought them to Italy will not quite leave them in peace.”

The book is narrated by a 9-year-old boy. I have son who will be 9 in a little over two weeks. I talk to him on a daily basis. I love him - very much - but I don’t think I’d want to read a novel that is entirely made up of his inner thoughts and narration of daily events. However, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, which is narrated by a 9-year-old girl, so maybe it’s purely the execution. Author Matthew Kneale has written not only in Lawrence’s voice, but with lots of misspellings, as if he actually wrote the book. Maybe that’s what pushed it over the top. I also couldn’t take the descriptions of his sister Jemima’s misbehavior - it made me want to lock her in an eternal time-out.

I did, however, find another reviewer who enjoyed the book - and several Amazon reviewers liked it enough to give it at least three stars. So it’s probably just me.

After finishing two World War II novels (Guernica and The Devil’s Arithmetic), I wanted something lighter, so I picked up:

The High-Tech Knight (Book 2 in The Adventures of Conrad Stargard) by Leo Frankowski

I’m not completely wasting my brain, however. I also started this:

Essays of the Masters edited by Charles Neider

I’m also planning to start:

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

and

The Sign of the Book by John Dunning

So, that’s what books are inhabiting my world this week. I’m off to read all of your Sunday Salon thoughts.

I love sharing books with my kids. I have recommended many books to Natalie that I loved as a kid, and now she has started to reciprocate. The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen is a book she read and then said, “Mom, you have to read this book!” So I did.

Hannah is a twelve-year-old modern Jewish girl. She has been raised with a hodge-podge of tradition, and her family is not very observant. They do, however, spend Passover with her mother’s family. Her grandfather goes a little crazy during the Passover meal, flashing the number tattooed on his arm that indicates he is a survivor of the Holocaust. Hannah, being a slightly selfish tween, can’t understand what all the fuss is about.

Then Hannah opens the door to her grandparents’ apartment during the part of the Passover dinner when the door is opened to allow the prophet Elijah to enter. And instead of seeing the hallway of an apartment building, she sees a field. When she turns back to the apartment, she is in a small home with a strange woman who keeps calling her Chaya. She tries to settle into what seems to be her new life, when she realizes what year it is. It’s 1942, and she’s living with Jews. And when they are rounded up and taken to a concentration camp, Hannah is taken with them - and she soon realizes what her grandparents have been trying to teach her.

The Devil’s Arithmetic is an extremely well-written and moving novel of the holocaust. The things that Hannah experience are unspeakable, and so this is not a book for young children. It is a YA novel. I would say it would be all right for kids 12 and up, unless they are especially sensitive.

Guernica is an outstanding novel, and the fact that it is Dave Boling’s first is truly remarkable. I have read a lot about World War II - both fiction and nonfiction, and yet I had never heard of Guernica’s story before. In the run-up to World War II, the Nazis were helping General Franco take over Spain. One of Franco’s goals was to rid Spain of the Basque culture. The Nazis saw an opportunity to align themselves with Franco and, at the same time, perform an experiment in total warfare in order to prepare for the coming war.

On April 26, 1937, the Luftwaffe “Condor Legion” bombarded the Basque town of Guernica. They dropped bomb after bomb, and then fighter planes swooped down and shot down any survivors, even following people into fields and shooting them down. Men, women, children, the elderly - the Nazis did not discriminate. The results were devastating - entire families wiped out, hundreds killed, even more maimed and disabled for life.

I keep thinking that I understand the extent of the atrocities the Nazis perpetrated on the human race, but then another incident of inexplicable evil and horror comes to my attention. The magnitude of the atrocities are inconceivable, truly “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” as Jane Yolen so aptly titled her YA novel of the holocaust.

Boling is a natural as a writer of historical fiction, as he introduces characters that live and breathe on the pages of his book. Justo and Mariangeles; their daughter Miren; Miguel and Dodo, the fisherman’s sons; the blind soapmaker Alaia; Father Xabier, Justo’s brother and an advisor to Spain’s beleaguered President Aguirre - all of these people bring the events of history to life and make the devastation of Guernica personal. As Boling tells the story of Guernica and her people, he also tells the story of human suffering, heroism, and amazing fortitude. The Basque culture is portrayed in all its beauty, and the countryside of Spain is described so well that you can see, hear, taste, and smell it.

One of my favorite authors of historical fiction is Leon Uris. Boling’s writing style reminds me of Uris in Trinity - one of my all-time favorite books. The fact that I thought of Uris as I was reading Guernica is high praise indeed. I will be eagerly watching for any further books from Dave Boling.

5 stars

For more information on Guernica, visit the Guernica Peace Museum.

Now, the really cool thing is that yesterday, when I was about 30 pages away from finishing my ARC copy of Guernica, a beautiful hardback publisher’s copy arrived in the mail. I’m going to be selfish and keep the hardback for myself, but I will gladly give the ARC to one of you! Here’s how it works:

~ This giveaway is open to readers in the US and Canada only, since I am covering the cost of postage myself.

~ For one entry, leave a comment on this post before 11:59 pm PST, Friday, September 5, 2008. Be sure that your comment includes a valid e-mail address so that I can reach you if you win.

~ For an additional entry, include in your comment the title and author of your favorite work of historical fiction.

~ For a third entry, blog about this giveaway. Then come back and leave another comment with the link to your post.

~ I’ll draw a winner sometime on Saturday, September 6th, and then e-mail the winner for mailing info.

Good luck!

I saw this in a Sunday Salon post at Lesa’s Book Critiques, and thought it would be fun to do.

On your nightstand now: Defining Moments in Books, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and Essays of the Masters.

Book you’ve “faked” reading: I’ve never intentionally done this, but I’m not sure if I’ve actually read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, or only part one, since I’ve seen the movies umpteen times.

Book you’ve bought for the cover: The Sense of Paper by Taylor Holden

Favorite book when you were a child: Too many to name them all! First one that comes to mind is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler by E.L. Konigsberg

Book that changed your life: The Bible

Favorite line from a book: “The books of our childhood offer a vivid door to our own pasts, and not necessarily for the stories we read there, but for the memories of where we were and who we were when we were reading them; to remember a book is to remember the child who read that book.” from The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee

Top five favorite authors: Leon Uris, Athol Dickson, Lisa Samson, Wendell Berry, Jane Austen

Books you recommend as regeneration when people say, “I’m bored by almost all contemporary American writers.”: That Distant Land by Wendell Berry

Book you can’t believe that everyone has not read and loved: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Book you are an “evangelist” for: Absolutely anything written by Wendell Berry. Oh, and Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset.

Book you most want to read again for the first time: Trinity by Leon Uris. Absolute favorite - love it every time I read it, but the first time was magical.

Teaser Tuesdays ask you to:

Grab your current read.

Let the book fall open to a random page.

Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

Please avoid spoilers!

Today’s teaser is from Guernica by Dave Boling.

Xabier swallowed, looking into the eyes of reporters in the front row.

“…I saw an old peasant standing alone in a field; a machine-gun bullet had killed him…The sound of the explosions and of the crumbling houses cannot be imagined.” ~p. 225

Click over to Should Be Reading and leave a link if you play along!

Didn’t we just do this? This week flew by - probably because it is our last week of summer vacation. Our homeschool year starts tomorrow. I’m excited, actually, simply because I’m ready to have a normal schedule back. The summer was fun, but crazy busy. And even though we start school on Monday, on Wednesday we’ll have one last summer fling when I take the kids here.

Okay, on to the reason we do The Sunday Salon - books!

I finished three books this week. I may finish one more today - depending on how much time I squeeze in.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro - review here.

Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir by Jennette Fulda - review here.

The Cross-Time Engineer (Book 1 in The Adventures of Conrad Stargard) by Leo Frankowski - review here.

I’m about halfway through Guernica by Dave Boling, and may finish it today. It’s a beautifully-written historical novel about the Basque region of Spain in the years leading up to World War II. It’s the kind of book that leaves me in a quandry - I want to know what happens to the characters, but if I finish it, it will be over, and the writing is so beautiful I want to savor it. Sigh.

I’m also reading The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, at my daughter Natalie’s request. She loved this book, and since she often takes my reading recommendations, I try to reciprocate. I’m only one chapter in so far.

Well, I’m off to read about the books the rest of you are reading this Sunday!

I went to a birthday party with my kids after lunch, where I ate a huge piece of Mud Pie. I then spent the rest of the afternoon reading Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir by Jennette Fulda. How’s that for irony? Especially since one of my kids announced my weight to everyone at the table, and another said I needed to go back on Weight Watchers. (On a side note, at least one of them is too young to realize that this was completely rude.)

Jennette Fulda literally lost half of herself. 51.9% of her body weight, according to her blog. Her top weight was 372. She now weighs 180. She’s 5′9″ and she looks fabulous, as you can see if you check out her progress page.

I need to lose at least half of my weight. I don’t quite weigh as much as Ms. Fulda’s top weight, but I’m only 5′5″, so you do the math. This book was just the kind of book I needed right now. She doesn’t talk about dealing with the emotional reasons she overate. She doesn’t talk about her dysfunctional childhood - in fact, she has a fairly functional family who has always supported her, no matter her weight. She doesn’t blame her weight gain on past abuse or trauma.

What she does do is talk about making a choice. And then making another choice. And another. And another. And each of those choices added up to completely changing her lifestyle, becoming a thin person, discovering that her body was capable of things she never knew, and finding happiness.

I’m realistic. I used to dream about becoming a size four, attending my high school reunion, and knocking everyone’s socks off. I know that after having four children, and being morbidly obese for years, that this will never happen. Even if I reach my goal weight, I will have a lot of loose skin hanging around. Ms. Fulda still does, but she doesn’t much care about it. What she does care about is the fact that she can now not only walk miles, but run. She can put her foot up on her bathroom counter to trim her toenails. She can squat, and then get back up without using anything for leverage. She owns her body - it no longer owns her.

That’s what I want. I want to feel like my body is something I can work, not something that works against me. I only hope I can keep making all of those little choices that add up to big change.

I highly recommend this book. Ms. Fulda is extremely funny, and I found myself laughing aloud just as many times as I teared up in commiseration. Here’s a couple samples:

It was inevitable. I would have to learn how to cook. the best way to control what I ate was to prepare it myself. This was going to be painful, literally. My feet began to hurt if I stood for more than five minutes, but if I could survive a nine-hour gallbladder attack, I could withstand bowing arches after ten minutes in front of a skillet.

My diet book had some recipes in the back, but they included strange ingredients like “shallots” and “littleneck clams.” I didn’t even know clams had necks. I strated a search for recipes online and nixed anything too complex. Anything that involved separating egg whites or getting out the sifter was a no-go. I wasn’t even sure we owned a flour sifter. I also had zero tolerance for weird ingredients. I was not averse to buying one or two new spices or veggies for a recipe, but if it turned into a grocery store scavenger hunt that required me to find eye of newt, it was out. No toil or trouble. ~p. 64-65

I had been tricked. I’d started all this healthy eating and exercising only so I could get what I wanted - thin. Now I was actually enjoying it. It was like the time I’d tried a free trial of Netflix thinking I could get a free month’s worth of DVDs and then quit once I’d gotten my free rentals. Now I had hundreds of movies in my queue and would never be able to watch them as quickly as I added them. Thank goodness I’d never joined a bug-eating club. I might find myself swatting flies, dipping them in Dijon mustard sauce, and enjoying it. ~p. 185

4 out of 5 stars

When I was in college, I dated two very different guys who both loved the Adventures of Conrad Stargard series by Leo Frankowski. I read the entire series, and also enjoyed it very much, passing it on to my dad who calls it a favorite. I picked up book one off my dad’s shelf on a whim Sunday afternoon, and finished it this morning.

In some ways, this is a guy’s book. Conrad is an engineer - very intelligent, but nothing nerdy about this engineer - he’s a complete hit with the ladies. But, along side the guy-oriented descriptions of various maidens is a pretty good story.

Conrad passes out in the basement of a tavern near Cracow while on a hiking vacation from his work as an engineer. He wakes up in 13th century Poland - just 10 years before the Mongols are due to invade and decimate the country. Conrad uses his modern knowledge, his engineering skills, and a few things from his knapsack to become a revered - and feared - knight. Realizing that he has no idea how to find his way back to modern times, he settles in to make the best of things - and save Poland from the Mongol invasion.

These are very light reads - filled with wit, great descriptions of the machines Conrad builds, and a little bit of romance mixed with some bawdy humor.

3 out of 5 stars

What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?

I loved our public library growing up. Not only was it filled with books that I could take home free, but one of the librarians was our friend. When my three sisters and I were little, Teresa, the librarian, went to our church. She was a wonderful single gal, and she loved us as much as we loved her. She was our babysitter of choice whenever our parents went away for the weekend. She didn’t just babysit us, though. She brought over her trunk of antique ball gowns and old prom dresses, and her stack of records: show tunes, classical, ballet music. She brought videos of musicals like Pirates of Penzance and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We dressed up and sang and danced and had an abolute ball.

When we were old enough to appreciate it, she started taking us to the symphony, the ballet, the theater. A trip to Seattle with Teresa meant a stop at Dick’s Drive-In for burgers, then whatever performace we were attending, and then Red Robin for mud pie. You know that feeling of anticipation that hits you when you hear an orchestra tuning up? That feeling is connected to Teresa in my mind.

Because we knew Teresa, we got very special treatment at the library. Not only did she save new books for us - we got to go behind the counter. We got to stamp our own cards. We got to open boxes of new books. And I’m fairly sure we never paid a library fine. Of course, we rarely turned in books late because Teresa had such faith in us.

I still love the library, and so do my kids. The librarians know us all by name, and they joke that the hold shelf gets emptied whenever we come in. Because I love to read, the library would have always been important to me. But because of Teresa, it’s a magical place.

The Great Debaters was our viewing choice last night, and it was a worthy way to spend an evening. Denzel Washington directed and starred in this film based on the true story of a debating team from Wiley College (an all-black school) in Marshall, Texas.

Washington stars as Professor Melvin Tolson, a poet and teacher who coaches the debate team. The year is 1935. Blacks are not allowed entrance to state colleges. Blacks are still lynched in the state of Texas - and all over the south. Sharecroppers have a standard of living that is barely above slavery.

Enter James Farmer, Jr., Samantha Booke, and Henry Lowe, Tolson’s choices for the debate team. They are young - Farmer, Jr. in particular, who is only 14 - but they are smart and they have a passion for justice. After an undefeated season, they are invited to debate Harvard’s debate team - the first time Harvard welcomed the team from an all-black school.

Denzel Washington is always brilliant. Forest Whitaker stars as James Farmer, Sr. - and his son, Denzel Whitaker (named for Washington), plays his son in the film. Talent certainly runs thick in the Whitaker blood. Also putting in wonderful performances are Jurnee Smollet as Samantha Booke and Nate Parker as Henry Lowe. It was also nice to see Gina Ravera in a small role as Tolson’s wife - something completely different from her portrayal of Lt. Daniels on TNT’s The Closer.

Highly recommended.