August – 13, 14, 15

13 – Flight Behavior – Barbara Kingsolver

This was long, but worth it.  I read the Poisonwood Bible several years ago and I sometimes hesitate to read multiple books by the same author, as sometimes you kind of know what you’re going to get.  Jodi Picoult, for example, means you’re going to read about  something controversial and complicated, like having a second child to provide to your first child or suing your best friend/doctor who didn’t recommend an abortion for your child with a harsh genetic disease. 

This book was very different from Poisonwood Bible, which I only vaguely remember, but I recall that it was a large book and was about missionaries.  And complex.

Also complex, Flight Behavior touches on a few topics, including Global Warming, Liberal Privilege, Economic and Educational gaps between rural and developed areas in the US, opportunity and lack thereof,  religion, ambition, poverty, family and marriage. 

14 – Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

I dismissed this when it was big, lumping it together with the Vampire books for the teenagers, things to prepare soft minds for “Adult” books like 50 Shades of Grey and other non-literature. 

My friend, Aaron Lucas, was obsessed with this book over a year ago.  Aaron had good taste and an eye for culture, introduced me to some great music and I miss him.  I downloaded this book soon after I heard of his death and just got around to reading it.   And I love it.  And it is great to be reading a book with a strong female lead who isn’t about peddling sex. 

15 – Catching Fire – See Above re: Hunger Games. 

July – where am I? 12? Did I miss one?

all the books, all the forgotten books….

By now, I should be at 14 books, and I’ve been reading… but not posting!

So, where are we?

9 – The Light Between Oceans – ML Stedman

10 – Let’s ex;ore Diabetes with Owls – David Sedaris

11 – A Movable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

12 – Myths of the Asanas – The stories at the heart of the yoga tradition – Alanna Kaivalya and Arjuna van der Kooij

Book 8 – Yoga Bitch: One Woman’s Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment – Suzanne Morrison

I remember when this book came out and I thought it might be interesting to read.  It was around the time I did one of my 40 days of yoga experiments. (I did that twice, with very different commitment levels, different outcomes, different pretty much everything)

Suzanne Morrison is from Seattle and the book starts with 9/11.  I was living in Seattle for 9/11, and just a few years older than Suzanne.  I dabbled in yoga in Seattle (um, I’ve only ever dabbled in yoga anywhere, I guess…) so I wondered if I would know any of her characters or if we may have friends in common.  Did I know her characters, Indra and Lou?  Were they real?   I probably wouldn’t have known them since I only went to a couple of studios and wasn’t on a first name basis with the teachers, for the most part.

In the book, 25 year old Suzanne has some free time and (apparently) cash to go to Bali for 2 months before she is due to move to NY to meet up with her boyfriend, Jonah. Awesome! Lucky!

The book certainly kept my interest.  Would she drink her pee? Would she get Bali Belly?  Would she ultimately stay with Jonah, where she has some legitimate concerns about her commitment and responsibility to herself, her family and Jonah.

In some ways, I really had a hard time relating to 25 year old Suzanne.   Her Woman Crush/idolization of her yoga teacher, for example, which deteriorates into petty criticisms when the teacher pays attention to other students/friends.   The lust for the Prada bag.  And I guess ultimately, that I have a very different expectation from my yoga practice or my desires/wishes to develop a deeper practice.   See, I’m not really into the ritual part and I don’t have expectations that every class is going to lead me to a path to enlightenment. I guess I don’t know what my expectations are from my yoga practice, other than I have never regretted going to a yoga class and that even the classes where I’m challenged – whether that is challenged by the difficulty of the class, my attitude, an annoying classmate, the voice of the instructor – whatever it is, I find that I can let that challenge go somehow and that, in and of itself, is gratifying.

In some ways, Suzanne made me uncomfortable, as she reminded me of  times when I’ve been bratty or obsessive or otherwise neurotic.   Not that I am now. (Really, I’m pretty much not)

It is easy to judge that a 25 year old should take responsibility for herself, and this yoga retreat was clearly a step in that direction, but I didn’t walk away feeling that she provided any answer about enlightenment or even discipline or achievement.   Just a story of the thing she did for 2 months.  Which is fine.  She had moments of wisdom, moments of the opposite of wisdom and presents these in a pretty approachable way.

Book 7 – Sex at Dawn- How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships

Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

Confession time: I needed a time out from this book, so I haven’t finished.  Maybe I’ll pick it up again, but I get what they’re saying and it actually isn’t as threatening as I feared it might be.

I thought this would be a book about non-monogamy and how we should all have free love.  Generally, I thought it would be a polyamory book about jealousy, etc.  blah, blah, blah.  Interestingly, I think that a main point was that monogamy, as it has grown as the norm in our culture, has actually removed power from women, not just sexually, but in society.

The book is controversial and my boyfriend and I talk about it pretty regularly.  There’s so much to say, but it kind of all lives in the book.

Interesting read, not a lot I really want to write about it, as I didn’t get to the point where it was all wrapped up into a tidy package with a ribbon around it yet.

Book 6 – Swamplandia – Karen Russell

Oops.

Fell off my own band wagon!  I think I read another book before this… at least I started…but didn’t finish… Anyway….

This was a Book Club book.  I finished it back in March, I think, and I wish I could say that the reason I didn’t write about it until now was because I didn’t know what to say… Actually, I can say that.  I don’t really know what to say about this book.

The book is mostly written from the perspective of Ava Bigtree, a 13 year old on an island in the Everglades.  Ava’s mother has just died of cancer.  Her grandfather has been sent to the mainland because he has Alzheimers.   The amusement/alligator park her family has is left with no main act, since  that was Mom, who, as I mentioned, has passed away.    Ava’s older sister, Ossie,  talks to dead people.  And has romantic relationships with them as well.   Ava’s older brother,  Kiwi, realizing the dire situation on the island for the family, runs away to the mainland to try to save the alligator farm.   The father has to “go away” for a bit to try to earn some money so that the family and their business won’t face foreclosure.

The children in this family have certainly had a non-traditional upbringing – no other kids that they interact with, fully home-schooled, learning how to wrestle alligators and how to work in the family business.  They are the least worldly people in the world.  And the father seems to perpetuate this.  There are few “Real world” lessons that these kids really comprehend.

As I read the book, I think of weird sociological experiments.  I also consider other cultures and perspectives in the world that I have heard of (a la Sex at Dawn, which I put on hold so I could finish this).   I try to be open minded. But these kids really need CPS.

I also have some memories of my childhood, initially – where my brother and I, on a whim, were fine to just walk out of our house, down to the pond to poke at salamanders, visit my grandparents (and other neighbors),  and explore without fear or concrete.

As the story progresses, the characters and story gets weirder and weirder. But Ava becomes no more wary or worldly.  She takes everything at face value.

This is where things get creepy.  Very creepy.  As a debt collector comes to see her father and Ava ends up leaving with him, only mildly suspicious when he takes anything of value from the home.  Creepier as her sister sets off on a mission that is surely to be fatal.   Only Kiwi, by stepping into and facing the “real world” develops his strengths, stumbling all along, but ultimately being the one who brings his family together.

Lots of disturbing things happen in this book. And it still gives me an uneasy feeling.  I wish I could say that it wraps up with a lesson, but it doesn’t .   I guess it is a somewhat happy ending, but Ava continues to be unaware and unsophisticated and … ungrown, for having endured some pretty traumatic experiences.

 

 

Book 5 – Where’d You Go, Bernadette: A Novel – Maria Semple

Huh.

Not sure what happened with this one.  It has had great reviews on Amazon. Kept popping up as recommended for me.

Now, I hate to be critical of art.  I hate to be critical in general  -it takes a lot to take an idea and make a thing, whether it is a book, a picture, a song, etc.

But this book is probably one of the least good books I’ve read in a while.   So, the plot is that this family lives in Seattle.  The father is a MSFT genius.   He is kind of a butthead.   The mom is also a genius who fled LA after some bizarre architectural fiasco.   She is weird and the neighbor ladies don’t like her, because she is also a butthead.   These buttheads gave birth to (surprise!) a precocious girl and they promise her that if she gets good grades they can go to Antarctica. They all go around Seattle, doing very Seattle-y things that Seattleites don’t really do – it is like some kind of cloying scavenger hunt of the tourist traps in Seattle.  Dinner at the Space Needle, Ballard’s Scandinavian heritage,  Pike Place Market, Lola’s, Dale Chilhuly – I lived there for 8 years, so I got all the references, but I found it annoying that she had to drop every name of everything Seattle.  I made a pact with myself that if she dared to mention the troll under the bridge, I was going to throw my kindle out the window.

Back to the plot.  Some stuff happens and the dad decides, suddenly, that his wonky wife (who has been this way all along) suddenly needs to be committed.   He bonks his secretary.  The mom takes a nap on a sofa in a window and is spotted and presumed to be drugged.   This is all told from the perspective of the young teen Bee.

The story is not believable for a moment, none of the characters seems to be very complex.  I finished because I was stuck on a plane and was curious enough to see how things panned out.

So, Meh.

 

Book 4 – The Sisters Brothers

Fits and bursts on this one.  I liked it, I wanted to get through it and find out the end, for sure.

I grew up on movies that featured Clint Eastwood.  One of my teenage traumas includes the Dirty Harry movie where a guy ends up impaled on a fence post.  I think that one actually happens in San Francisco, a place that I have in common with both Clint Eastwood and the Sisters Brothers!

I think that people like to read books about people they relate to.  I cannot relate to either of the Sisters Brothers.   One is a murderer and thief and thug at heart.  The other does these things somewhat reluctantly.    They are on a mission from Oregon City to California to kill someone that they’ve been sent to kill by a mysterious “Commodore”, who is the big chief with a lot of power.

There is little delicacy in the lives of our heroes.  Lots of rough living, whorin’, drinkin’, etc.   Human life means little to these men – I can’t get a grasp of whether that is the case for everyone during this time-frame.  Thinking of other books I’ve read, movies I’ve seen and the Barbary Coast tour my friends and I took ourselves through a few years ago (we were going to hire a tour guide, but then there were only 6 and it was going to cost us a fortune, so we picked up some maps and did what we could with our phones, it being pre-awesome-google maps and widespread G4 usage and my love affair with anything Wiki) I try to imagine the mindset on this topic – you know you’re not going to live past 40 anyway, and adding things like massive trips through the wilderness, the likelihood of dying from a cold, infection, flu, scurvy… what was the value of life?

So, I guess I actually did become interested in Eli, when he starts out with a grudge against his horse, then later feels a fondness and loyalty to him when he could have a much better horse.   Eli also shares sentiments about why he would rather not have the company of a whore for the evening and his wish for a home.  While he is a reluctant killer, he still does a good job of performing the actions he and his brother need to keep the mission going – stealing, fighting to the death, and binge drinking.   I guess I do root for Eli and Charlie and they redeem themselves in the end.

 

Book 3 – The Silver Linings Playbook – Matthew Quick

I have a Kindle that goes with me pretty much everywhere.  I was headed home after 10 days in NYC, a long trip that ended with a bit of a letdown and a cold.  So what if I made an impulse purchase?  It was a book.  And besides, my eyes were stinging, I was congested and getting onto a plane to fly across the country.  I don’t believe in guilty pleasure.  There is only pleasure.  So. There.

I’m glad I picked this up – I  just needed to get lost in a book for a little while and this made it easy.  I arrived at the airport way too early, so I got a good head start before I even got onto the plane and I was finished before the trip was halfway over, at which point, I watched CSI reruns while trying to avoid flipping by the cringe-y Bravo channel.  So, it took me approximately the same amount of time to read the book as it would have for me to look up where the movie was playing, get there, buy tickets, watch the movie and get home  under normal circumstances.   I don’t consider myself a super fast reader, I was just committed.

Anyway, about the book – Pat Peoples returns from being institutionalized.  We’re not sure for what.   But it has something to do with his ex wife, Nikki, who he wasn’t very nice to.   Turns out he has been institutionalized for 4 years when he thinks it has just been a few months.  But he is out and ready for a new start, ready to be perfect, until his wife, Nikki, will end the “apart time” and he will show her how wonderful he will be, how sorry he is.   He views his life as a movie that is being directed by God and that there is a happy ending around the corner.

This wasn’t an intellectually challenging book, but it is approachable and sweet and a nice story.  Nice enough to be made into a movie.  Which I probably won’t watch now (since the movie is never as good as the book)

 

Book 2 – The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

I’m a huge fan of this book.  Why do we do the things we do?  How do we stop doing the things that are bad for us and learn how to do the things that are good for us?  How do some people successfully change bad habits while others seem essentially powerless to overcome their bad habits.

The take-aways include some great anecdotes and success stories for sure, but most of all, a breakdown of how you can create your own good habits.

As I read this book, I had several instances of seeing where this knowledge could be used in real life.   How do you find and remember the reward that motivates you?  How can you apply this to your personal life and your work and even influence change in a big organization in the face of resistance.

On the days that I read this book on my way to work, I felt more “on” for the remainder of that day, focused on work, motivated to work out, make better choices for lunch.  And, if I happened to make the bed that day before leaving home, it was a “watch out, World!” kind of feeling.

I bought a copy of this for a client and will probably buy a couple more copies to share, as I have done with a couple other books in this category, most notably:

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

Stumbling on Happiness

Book 1 – In the Time of the Butterflies – Julia Alvarez

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Butterflies-Julia-Alvarez/dp/1565129768

My book club is a great source of books that I wouldn’t normally read, but then I end up enjoying these most of all.   The format of our book club is that one member hosts, providing food and space, and picks 2-3 books.  The rest of the gals vote on book and date to meet (about every 6-8 weeks).  We get together, drink, eat, and usually at least 50% of those who attend have read the book.    This is one of the books that was passed on for an earlier book club and was re-circulated in a vote for our Feb. book club.

I was a Latin American Studies and Spanish Major in College and I can’t believe this book wasn’t assigned – I believe it was initially published around that time.  Perhaps it was assigned, but I was more interested in keg parties.

As much as I read about dictatorships, uprisings, revolts, disaparecidos, my college self (and probably my current self as well) really didn’t get a sense of why someone would revolt or how someone would be motivated to rebel against their government.  How does someone get involved in trying to change their government, when the government has all the power?  How do you transition between lying low and under the radar to becoming a rebel?

Alvarez’s writing painted this process so quickly across a variety of women and personalities within the Mirabal sisters.  At the start of the book, it is clear that one of the sisters is suited to become a rebel, but as the book progresses, you see why there became no alternative for the others than to join their sisters as their family is torn apart and tortured via jailings, creepy surveilling and monitoring by Trujillo, the Dominican Dictator in the 1940s.

The Mirabal sisters really existed.  The book is a blend of fact and fiction.  I usually find it difficult to read about history, but I was invested and truly lost in this really excellent book.