What Teachers Make by Taylor Mali

Watch the Video Poem the Inspired the Book - Author's Web Page

Montague Book Mill in Montague Massachusetts

We had another chance to visit our favorite bookstore again this weekend. A bookstore with the motto "Books you don't need in a place you can't find" suits me fine. We arrived on Sunday morning for coffee and an egg bagel as the little cafe overlooking the falls was full of people reading, working on laptops and chatting over newspapers. The day was sunny and perfect,and although we got away without buying any books this time, this bookstore wins the favorite bookstore on the planet award.

Montaque Book Mill website

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

This book kept me reading on a recent weekend trip to Massachusetts. Started reading it when our flight out to Cleveland was delayed and finished reading it at my favorite bookstore (see related post - The Montague Book Mill). This slim novel attracted my attention as a Man Booker nominated title. The central character, Tony Webster, is a college lad as the novel opens and reflects on his life 40 years later at the book's end. It is a story of love lost, redemption and various faces closure wears in our lives.

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The Night Swimmer by Matt Bondurant

Thankfully, I read this novel well after our summer trip to Ireland where we met nothing but warm and inviting locals.  I got this book from the library after reading that the premise was based on an actual "win an Irish pub" contest sponsored by the people at Guinness back in 1998.  In Bondurant's fictional version, the winners are Fred and Elly, a Vermont couple whose prize is a pub in the tiny town of Baltimore on the southern coast of Ireland.  Once there, they encounter all sorts of obstacles - ghosts, goats and Gaelic superstitions - and plenty of not-so warm and inviting locals.  Elly is a swimmer who assumes she can swim from Clear Island to the mystery enshrouded Fastnet Lighthouse.  One look at photos of the light house online convinced me she was crazy, even without the threats of the locals.  I liked the Gothic mystery of the novel, but I finished it with lots of unanswered questions and disappointment over the evil Irishmen that this book introduced me to.

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

This one was just for fun! The available man of the title is recently widowed Edward Schuyler, whose kids think should be ready to date again. They place a personal ad for him in The New York Review of Books and the letters from the ladies begin to arrive. He gets a little more than he bargained for when a past love shows up at his door. It all works out in the end for this shy, science teacher who was a pretty appealing character. Guilty pleasure romance reading for Valentines week

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Website for the Book

I received an advance reading copy of this tender novel last year and was reminded of it when I saw a full page ad for the book in the New York Times book review a week or two ago. I'm glad I dug it out because it sheds light on a historical event that I don't know much about. Ruta Sepetys wrote the novel out of the experiences of her Lithuanian refugee parents. The novel concerns 15 year old Lina, who is snatched by Soviet secret police from her home in her pajamas one morning along with her mother and brother, and taken by train to a Siberian prison camp. I was unaware the Baltic States lost more than one-third of their populations during the Russian genocide. It is a loss-of-innocence narrative that would be interesting and informative for high school readers.

Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief and Small Boats by Roger Rosenblatt

I have long been a fan of Roger Rosenblatt's reflective writing. Back when he wrote a regular column for Time magazine, I would turn to the back of the magazine first to read him before any of the headline news. His "Man in the Water" essay is up there with Annie Dillard and Emerson in my book. So I have followed his recent career and read an excerpt from Making Toast, the book he wrote following his 38 year old daughter's unexpected death, that was printed in the New York Times. In Kayak Morning, Rosenblatt describes the cloak of grief and meditates about the business of keeping afloat among the living which he is achieving through excursions in a kayak he bought and has learned to paddle recently. My husband and I bought each other kayaks when we were married. I understand the balance metaphor that Rosenblatt is using in this lovely, little book. Like a paddle in shallow water, his narrative dips into passages of poetry, memories of stories from war zones he covered in his reporting, and daily reflections. This book should be a gift for any dear friend who loses a loved one - or a reminder to the those not enveloped in grief that loss comes without invitation and lingers like a wind on rough water.

Lovely Video if You Love Books

Stop Motion Animation at Tornonto Bookstore Type

Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

This book was an unexpected surprise from David for Christmas. I think he selected it for me because it is reminiscent of my son's high school straight edge, tattoo fascination days. The novel begins with the fatal drug overdose of a high school boy, Teddy, on New Year's eve. Teddy and his best friend, Jude, ended up at a party with Eliza, who gives Teddy cocaine and becomes pregnant with Teddy's child before his body is found the next morning. The novel seemed a bit preachy in places - certainly these character lives were messed up, but Hare-Krishna-to-the-rescue did not seem the most obvious solution. The book takes on drugs, homosexuality, AIDS, parenting, adoption, tattooing and the hard-core music scene. I stayed interested to the end - although the last chapter (two pages) seemed a forced conclusion. The book has received much praise - New York Times Book Review – Top 10 Books of 2011; New York Times – 100 Notable Books of 2011;
New Yorker – A Year’s Reading selection; O Magazine – Top 5 Fiction; Amazon – Top 10 Debut Fiction. And it was a great Christmas present.

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