It Chooses You by Miranda July

I have a bit of a fascination with Miranda July. Her previous movie You Me and Everyone We Know was oddly entertaining, so I was intrigued when I read a review of this new book, published by McSweeney's that arose from her writer's block while working on her new movie, The Future . So David got me the book and the movie for Christmas. The day after Christmas is one of my favorite days of the year - stay in my pj's and read my Christmas gifts - and I sat on the couch and read It Chooses You in one sitting. As July's website below details, she took a detour into the live of individuals advertising in The Penny Saver and spent her days fueling her creative process by meeting and interviewing an bizarrely fascinating assortment of individuals advertising items for sale. The book really informed my viewing of the movie later that night - a movie I may not have enjoyed much at all without the back story. So a wonderful day of this Christmas break was spent with the quirky creativity of Miranda July.

Miranda July's Website

My Abandonment by Peter Rock

This was our December book club book, recommended by Dave Edmonds because his "other book club" had had such a lively discussion about it. And so did we. Based on a true story of a young girl and her father who were found living in the wild in Oregon, the book only features Caroline's side of the story. We decided her narration is unreliable and discussed the many questions left unanswered by the book. Even those who came to book club convinced that the story was predictable, left with questions. All in all - a great discussion book.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I finally jumped on the band wagon and read this one over Thanksgiving weekend, somewhat prompted by the fact that my non-reader son asked for the book for Christmas. After watching the trailer for the upcoming movie at lunch with my colleagues who teach this book to sophomores, I was convinced I would certainly need to read the book before seeing the movie. I wasn't disappointed and will probably read the rest of the series.

Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day

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The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt by Caroline Preston

What a unique book. Frankie Pratt's story is told through a series of colorful scrapbook pages detailing her early love life after graduating from Vassar through the travels to Paris where she meets literary legends. I was especially surprised by the archival photographs and connections with Edna St. Vincent Millay and Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare and Co. I had read Gatsby's Girl by Preston a few years back, but this book is a visual as well as literary journey
Caroline Preston Website

Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

This book came onto my radar because it was a finalist for the National Book Award. It is pure poetry. I read the whole thing while waiting for a doctors appointment.

The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman

This book creeped my out. Just watch the You Tube trailer and you will already be creeped out. The main character of this disturbing novel is a therapist named Vicky Vick (silly name) who is counseling a patient who spies on people in their homes in order to test the invisibility suit he has developed. The format - unpublished notes, phone messages, and recorded transcripts of therapy sessions - was annoying too. High school students might enjoy the reality TV qualities of the book, as well as the references to drugs, but I don't have many friends I will be sharing this one with.

Niagara Falls All Over Again by Elizabeth McCracken

I tried to read this vaudeville inspired buddy book a few years back and stopped. When book club picked it for November discussion, we decided to listen to it in the car on our drive to visit Massachusetts college daughter. The opening scene, especially listened to, is funny. The rest was like the highway - long and uneventful. Not a favorite.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

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I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck

I started this book and almost stopped because I thought it might be too depressing. Nina discovers her husband Philip has died while she was putting dinner on the table, and rather than take action, she sits with a bottle of wine by his body and recollects their lives together. Morbid? Not really. Tender? Very.

Hip Hop Parenting - 10 Years Later

Here is a link to the Salon.com articleI wrote 10 years ago after struggling with my son over obscene song lyrics on a CD he wanted to buy with his own money.

Ten years later, access to any kind of music is at the fingertips of my high school students 24/7 on their digital devices of the moment. Times change but my commitment to censorship stays the same.

Banned Books Week - September 24- October 1

Banned Books Week Website

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I couldn't wait to blog about this amazing new novel! The Night Circus is the next big book people are going to be talking about - like Harry Potter and the Twilight series. I had heard the hype, waited for my library copy to come in and read the enraged bloggers talking about how Starbucks got them hooked on the free digital download of the first two thirds of the book. I am happy to say, the hype is merited. The Night Circus transports readers to the most lushly described imaginative landscape that I have visited in years. Only appearing at midnight in an undisclosed European city, The Night Circus is a black and white Victorian spectacle full of illusionists, contortionists and fortune tellers. Protagonists Marco and Celia are raised to compete against each other in a contest only one of them will survive. Their slow building love story is the central focus of the novel, but a whole cast of other performers, revelers and circus orchestrators keep the action - which goes back and forth in time - moving at such a clip that it is hard to put the book down, even though you want the story to last forever. I hate to disclose too much, but this book took me to a new world I didn't want to leave - even though I wanted to finish quickly and start spreading the word. I have to start knitting myself a red scarf, because I am a reveur in "Le Cirque des Reves...The Circus of Dreams"



The Night Circus book trailer

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ranson Riggs

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
So the last book of summer - better make it one worth talking about on the first day of school!
On Friday morning, David and I spent our last weekday of summer visiting Lucky's Cafe in Tremont because we had heard about the great breakfasts at Lucky's (which did not disappoint). But we also had the serendipitous adventure of finding a new independent bookstore in Cleveland - just as we were being disgusted by the number of cars in the Border's parking lot for the Going Out of Business Sale!
We happened upon Visible Voice bookstore and (say it ain't so) Wine Bar in Tremont. We went in and admired the space - just the right amount of books for browsing, with a full stock of wine behind the cash register and a side patio music venue. Perfect!

Wandering around, chatting with Mitch who was working behind the counter, I complimented him on the store and added that we do not need any new books. But my eyes were drawn to the cover of Miss Peregrine's Home - a book I had seen on the shelf at Carmichael's Books in Louisville at the beginning of the summer. Written by a guy who graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio and featuring the oddest collection of found photographs, it still called to me, and looked like an easy and intriguing "last weekend of summer" read. A little bit like Lemony Snicket for adults, the book trailer I found is a perfect introduction to the mystery of peculiar children on a mysterious island and a little time travel thrown in for good measure-
Book Trailer on YouTube
Author Explains Photos

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

The Family Fang: A Novel
As the end of the summer approaches, I panic about which books I most want to spend my last days reading. I had The Family Fang on my library order list, but rather than wait I downloaded the book to my iPad and I'm so glad that I did. The premise of this novel is deliciously nutty - Caleb and Camille Fang are performance artist to raise their two children, Annie and Buster, to accept their gonzo-theatrical lifestyle as "the norm". These characters are crazy, their mad-cap stunts are hysterical, and the issues of family and art at the center of the novel are pretty genuine. Go to the author's website to see his tattoo of the cover art of this book, which even he believes people will be talking about long enough to keep his tattoo in fashion - Kevin Wilson's Blog

A Turn of Mind by Alice LaPlant

Turn of Mind
There certain books, given the status of my life, that I should not read - and I knew this was one from the start. A crime novel about an osteopathic surgeon with early-onset Alzheimers who may have murdered her best friend and surgically removed four fingers from the corpse is not the best book for a reader who almost daily visits her mother in an Alzheimers facility. But after I tried to convince a shopper at my - then - local Borders that I knew the title of the book he was looking for even though the helpful Border's employee did not, I decided to get it from the library and give it a go. Yes - it disturbed me beyond compare. Yes - it gave creepily accurate descriptions of a residential facility for Alzheimers patients, but it was not a tidy tale. Since the doctor suffering memory loss is the narrator, she is both unreliable and impossible to follow. The mixture of italics and regular typeface that was suppose to distinguish between now and then was confusing, and I think I figured out who committed the crime pretty early on. You probably will too!

This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman

This Beautiful Life: A Novel
The house of cards on the cover of this novel is an accurate metaphor for what happens to a family when the teenage son puts a sexual video of the girl he shunned at a party up on the internet for his friends to see. As a parent and teacher of teenagers, the subject matter of This Beautiful Life reminds me of the world these kids are really living in and the need to teach and practice cyber-safety.

Ireland Travel Blog

Our 2011 Trip to Ireland

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Mudbound
My cousin has been begging me to read this book for a year or more, so a digital version went with me to Ireland on the iPad.  I know totally understand her urging!  Mudbound is a Southern saga, told through alternating narrators, of post WWII racism as a black and a white war hero return to the Jim Crow South.  The reviewers that compare Hillary Jordan to Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor are right.  This is a heart-wrenchingly beautiful book - but it is also an importantly moral book. 

The Very Thought of You by Rosie Alison

The Very Thought of You: A Novel
I received an advanced copy of this novel about the time I decided I needed a paperback for the plane trip to Ireland.  I almost never travel with a book I haven't at least read a chapter or two of before departing, in case I want to throw the book into an airport dumpster before the flight departs.  The beginning of this WWII love story intrigued me enough to make the cut.  Anna Sands is a young girl evacuated from London and placed in a make-shift school aI got To Be Sung Under Water from the library after reading so many favorable reviews.  Anna Sands is a young girl evacuated from London to a make-shift school on  the estate of Thomas and Elizabeth Ashton.  Thomas is confined to a wheel-chair, Elizabeth can't get pregnant, Anna is a very observant youth.  Do you see the trajectory of this love story?  I did too and was a little let down - especially since the book was short-listed for the Orange Prize last year in the UK. A little too melodramatic.

McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery in Ireland by Pete McCarthy

McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland
Such a hoot I don't know where to begin. The last of the Irish books, I finished this just days before our trip began. It is the true story of Pete McCarthy's quest to visit any pub called McCarthy that he came upon in Ireland. As I was reading this book, I laughed aloud at the crazy folks and situations the author described, all the while thinking this cannot be an accurate depiction of authentic Irish pubs and locals. Guess what - it was and it is and it should be a must-read for anyone planning a trip to Ireland. Plus - we saw it proudly displayed in several pubs we visited.

To Be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal

To Be Sung Underwater: A Novel
I got To Be Sung Under Water from the library after reading so many favorable reviews.  It is a story of adult loss and longing.  Judith has an established life with her husband and daughter in LA where she works editing film.  The nagging "what if" of her life surfaces when she suspects her husband's infidelity and decides to return to Nebraska to find Willy Blunt, the wild-child love of her youth.   It will sweep you under.

State of Wonder by Ann Pachett

State of Wonder

I got this book from the library because I was prepared to be disappointed as I was with Pachett's last novel, Run, but challenged myself to read it because it has been described as a modern day Heart of Darkness. And that it was. Dr. Marina Singh works as a researcher for a pharmaceutical company and is sent to the Amazon the unravel the mystery behind a co-worker's apparent death. Once she gets there, she learns the secret of "the work" that has been going on for years. Passages of it are very reminiscent of HOD, as we call it in AP class, but the book was predictable, laden with heavy handed imagery and an ending that is just plain corny.

The Dork of Cork by Chet Raymo

The Dork of Cork


As I began to wind down the Irish Books Challenge, I decided to get a used copy of The Dork of Cork from Amazon.  When the dog eared paperback arrived, the cover didn't suggest a novel of any promise.  The central character is 43 year old Frank Bois who is a soon-to-be-published author - and a dwarf!  Isolated by his perceived ugliness, Frank nonetheless communicate his love of beauty - of beautiful women who he admires from afar and of the stars.  In the end I was glad I made the effort to find and read this little gem.