Shine Shine Shine by Lydia Netzer

This is it!  If I were really returning to the classroom next week, this would have been the panic point of the summer when I asked myself why I hadn't been able to find a great book to rave about to my new classes.  Well no new classes and book found!  Shine Shine Shine is a fresh, other-worldy, tear-jerking romance that illuminates the frailty of humanity.  Sunny Mann is bald from birth, mother of a special needs child named Bubber, pregnant with her second child and married to Maxim, a nerdly NASA astronaut launched into space on a robot colonization mission.  Through flashback, vignette, and symbolic near-poetic narration, Netzer tells how the couple met and fell in love as fragile children and now face the fears of the future as parents.  There were lovely passages I wanted to copy long-hand -
"All life is binary. On and Off. There is no middle setting.  Alive or dead. In love or not in love. Kissing or not kissing. Speaking or not speaking. One choice leads to another with no forks in the road."   For a first novel, it blew my mind, made me cry and wish for that classroom of kids that I could shake this book in front of.  Readers will be talking about this one for a while.
Check out this Snappy robot song and quirky trailer for this book

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

Daisy - Innocence, Columbine - Desertion, Yellow Rose - Infidelity.  I knew from teaching Hamlet many times over the Ophelia had been schooled in the language of flowers, but didn't know how extensive the glossary of meaning could be until our book club chose this novel.  Victoria Jones spent her entire young life in the foster-care system and had difficulty loving or trusting anyone.  Once eighteen and out on her own, she sleeps in a public park where she cultivates a tiny flower garden and is befriended by a flower shop owner who discovers Victoria has a gift for choosing flowers based on the emotional needs of individual customers.  Reminiscent of the novel Chocolat, this is a story of an outcast longing for human connection.  Our book club enjoyed this one, even if it is a bit too predictable.

The Red House by Mark Haddon

I am a fan of Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, so I was excited to get his new novel from the library even though my husband had downloaded the opening chapter and found it very confusing.  For the first 100 pages I kept thinking he was writing the new Ulysses.  And not exactly in a good way.  The stream-of-consciousness, switching of narrators every paragraph made me crazy.  Then I backed off, considered the challenge and did what I tell my students to do - keep a little chart of character relationships on a bookmark.  Since the plot concerns an estranged brother and sister bringing their families together following the death of their mother to mend on holiday at a remote estate, the relationships are central.  And messy.  I finally let the syncopated rhythm of the book carry me and I learned - once again - that all families are both flawed and essential.

The World Without You by Joshua Henkin

How does a family cope after loss?  Beloved son and brother, Leo, was captured and killed while working in Iraq as a journalist and his parents are bringing his siblings, their families and his widow and son together for a memorial ceremony on the Fourth of July a year later at their idyllic summer home in the Berkshires.  But the reunion is all but idyllic.  Leo's death has crazed the veneer of normalcy and each character brings extra emotional baggage to the gathering.  The family dynamics Henkin illuminates ring true and are as explosive as the backdrop of the fireworks on the cover image.  Although I began to feel mired in the middle, I woke up early to finish this great summer novel.

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

This book enticed me from the public library New Books shelf because of the library envelope on the cover against the backdrop of isolated trailer. The book that Rory Dawn Hendrix repeatedly checks out from the library is The Girl Scout Handbook, her instruction manual for life which takes the place of the missing wisdom from her bar maid mother and her barely educated grandmother. Hassman uses alternating chapters of experimental style ranging from story problems with multiple choice answers to assumed reports written by the social worker who visits the trailer to check up on Rory. This mix confused the story rather than supported it, but I suppose reinforced the patch work of the lives of these sorry characters. I must say this book sent me researching the historic Buck vs. Bell court ruling written by Oliver Wendell Holmes that mandated sterilization for women who were determined to be "feeble-minded" - a word Rory uses early in the novel to describe the women role models in her life. Hassman applauds the influence of The Girl Scouts of America in her acknowledgements. The book trailer for the novel is worth checking out -  Girlchild Trailer

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

This is one summer book I looked forward picking up from the library. Described as an apocalyptic novel, it begins when 11 year old Julia's southern California town begins to experience a phenomena called The Slowing. The earth simply slows. Suddenly every day is a few minutes longer than the one before, then a few hours, then so out of balance that society is divided into the Real Timers and the Clock Timers. Julia's nervous mother fears the changes, her father reveals changes of heart, and Julia changes as all adolescents do. She gauges it all against the reactions of the boy she has a crush on. Early in the novel, Walker drops her theme statement into the middle of a paragraph - middle school itself is the age of miracles. Walker's writing doesn't sparkle as much as the promise of the perforated book jacket might promise, but Julia reminds us of the not-so-apocalyptic miracles of adolescence.

 

Facing our Addiction

We spent the day cleaning the basement today. The main motivation - to find a new home for the 16 boxes of books we brought home when we cleared off our school bookshelves. Our classroom bookshelves held the books we loaned to students. Our office bookshelves were filled with references and the occasionalmbook we needed on to illustrate that one lesson every year.

Now they all sit in boxes in front of the already brimming bookshelves in the basement. If we we allow them to stay in the boxes, we will forget their covers. If we unpack them, other books will have to go to make room. We are book addicted and we don't know where to turn for counseling! We could open a book store now that we once again live in a town without one. We could donate a good portion of them, but what if we teach again? We could try bartering books for services and goods, but that doesn't seem likely in a suburb where the traffic slows around the mall and COSTCO entrance drive.

Truth be told - home is where our books are. There is comfort in being able to go downstairs late on a winter's night to pull that one book off the shelf and find that one marked passage on a dog-eared page that contains the quote that has been lodged in your mind all day - that you cannot sleep without rereading. And Google is a sorry substitute for the analog object with the college marginalia and the memories of time spent with text.

For the time being, we are making more frequent trips to the library where the books with the neon pink "new" stickers beckon, feeding an addiction that may not have an easy cure.

 

Gold by Chris Cleave

 

This is it! If you have been reading these reviews looking for the perfect summer beach read, you won't be disappointed by this timely tale of rival female speed cyclists preparing for the London Olympics 2012. Cleave's Little Bee has been very popular and I think people will be talking Gold all summer. Part sports story, part love story, part parenting story - the suspense of the final race day helped me read long past sunset to finish this book in one day.

 

Sunset at my favorite beach

 

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

 

I needed some non-fiction to ground me after John Irving, and Terry Tempest Williams writes with a lovely, transcendental voice. In fact, voice is the subject of her fifty-four short musings in this beautiful little book. Williams is an environmentalist, and a Mormon. As her mother was preparing to die from cancer she told Williams she was leaving her three shelves of her journals which were not to be opened until after her death. Her daughter obeyed only to find all of the journals were blank and her mother no longer alive to ask for an explanation. Instead, she authors her mothers musings - about nature, bearing children and the Mormon faith. The book is full of rhetorical questions and declarative statements defining the journals. Having waited 25 years to write about these journals has given Williams time to ponder. She concludes that the journals were left to her as a summons to listen carefully to what was not being said and what consider what can only be felt. The book touched be particularly because my mother has left me for the silence of Alzheimers. Although I spend time with her, the time is full of silences which I fill with her missing voice from the past. The book helped me to see these silences as a treasure of sorts.

In One Person by John Irving

 

I have long been a John Irving fan. The World According to Garp may have been my first adult pleasure read as a freshman in college. Irving's new novel is so adult that I could never consider making it summer reading for AP, even though it is a very literary book with many layered Shakespeare references. Early Shakespearean actors playing female roles introduces the central issue of the novel which is filled with transvestites, transsexuals, bisexuals, and teens grappling with sexual identities. I am not a prude or a timid reader, but I tired of the sexual tension. I wanted a "normal mom character" or character I could identify with. I didn't find the usual humor I look for in Irving. Since David read this book before me, I knew he was conflicted in his review, but I urged him to withhold his evaluation until I had a chance to read it too. Turns out withholding information is the theme here. In retrospect, I love the literary quality of the novel, but it's subject matter made me squeamish.

 

Skios by Michael Frayn

Every summer I long for a funny book. Something absurdly entertaining that will take me out of this world into a madcap world of laughter and I expected Michael Frayn, whose famous play Noises Off is very funny, to deliver. At best, it reminded me of an episode of Three's Company. Set on the private island on Skios at Greek villa conference center where wealthy philanthropists have gathered to hear world-renowned lecturer Dr. Norman Wilfred speak, a case of switched personalities occurs. Enter the surprisingly younger, more handsome Oliver Fox, who assumes Wilfred's identity at the airport and is whisked off to Skios where everyone but this reader falls for his charm and fails to see he is not who he is supposed to be. I love dramatic irony, but not simplistic dramas where people taking off their clothes in front of the wrong people and purported geniuses can't keep a cell phone charged.

 

You Came Back by Christopher Coake

I'm not one for ghost stories, but I love an Ohio connection and Christopher Coake got his MFA in fiction at The Ohio State University, so You Came Back is set in Columbus.  He mentions German Village, and Short North and even Hocking Hills, so I felt very comfortable with the setting.  I did not feel comfortable with the subject matter because the loss of a child, even in a fictional setting, is unfathomable for me.  Mark Fife's young son Brendan died after fall in their home and, although the loss results in Mark's divorce from Brendan's mother, he has moved on and found love again.  This happiness is interrupted when the woman who lives in the home where Brendan died seeks Mark out to  tell him his son "came back".  I am uncomfortable with the notion of spirits and mediums, but I stayed up late one summer's night reading until I knew how this compelling story would unfold.

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

I keep giving Tom Perotta one more chance - this time because one of my AP reader friends suggested I would enjoy The Leftovers.  I had avoided reading the book thus far because the premise - the recovery measures taken by a group of suburbanites left after various of their loved ones were mysteriously seized by a Rapture-type event - didn't seem appealing.  As I started the book, I thought it would be biting satire, but the people of Mapleton could be the people of any town, and Kevin Garvey, the town mayor, ends up struggling with typical and mundane stresses - a spouses' rejection, a teenager's rebellion, mid-life angst.  Parts of the plot are mildly humorous, especially the cult-like Guilty Remnants who take a vow of silence and wander the town eaves-dropping on their neighbors while smoking mandatory cigarettes.  But the book seemed so contrived by the end I was left with the vapors of a great story - a fictional smoke-trick.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

A former AP student recommended this as an appropriate summer reading title for AP students, so I quickly read it on our trip to see our daughter's college graduation in Massachusetts. The main character, aptly named Changez, had been a Pakistani student studying at an American university and then a New York City businessman prior to 9/11. The episodic novel takes the form of a dialogue between Changez and an unnamed American tourist who is sitting in a cafe in Lahore. As the day fades, so do the lines between truth and memory as Changez grapples with his cultural identity and what it means to live The American Dream. Thanks for the recommendation, Bristee. I will miss hearing the discussions next fall about this enigmatic and mysterious novel.

Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate) by Amy Thomas

To kick off summer leisure reading, I began with the book I had given to my friend, Kathy, for Valentine's Day.  After reading it herself, she thought I would enjoy borrowing it - especially since daughter Meredith was talking about spending the summer in Paris.  Thomas was given the opportunity to leave her job in New York to spend a year in Paris as an advertising writer for Louis Vuitton.  The book compares bakeries and their specialties in New York and Paris and has quite an extensive list of bakeries and addresses for both locations in the back of the book.  I enjoyed reading the luscious and decadent descriptions of macaroons, cupcakes, madeleines and chocolates.  For a single woman living out her dream, Thomas seemed to be a bit of a whiner, but the vicarious culinary romp was enough diversion from Ohio on a summer's day to please my sweet tooth.

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I had read a lot about the Shakespearean parallels in this new novel with an intriguing title.  And I had a student who was reading the book for her independent novel project, so I decided not to put it aside once I had started reading it.  It is a sisters book - Cordelia, Bianca and Rosalind.  They grow up in a college town in Ohio (?) under the scholarship of their Shakespeare quoting professor father.  When their mother develops breast cancer, the adult sisters have  a reason to reunite.  I was a little disappointed in the way some of the conflicts were resolved, but the plot was clever enough to keep me interested.

Summer Reading and Retirement

We decided to kick off summer at our favorite spot for reading and relaxing.

Once Again to Louisville to Grade Essays

We keep falling for it - the promise of working with other intelligent professionals as passionate about teaching literature as we are in a pretty cool "drinking town with a horse problem".   The "work" involves lots of sitting and reading student handwriting and looking forward to 15 minute breaks and cafeteria lunches in a freezing cold convention center.  Luckily, we have friends we look forward to seeing every year and a chance to dine out in some pretty cool Louisville restaurants. So another week of grading AP Literature and Composition test essays is behind us.  Time for pleasure reading to begin again!

Carmichael's Bookstore - Louisville's Oldest Independent Bookstore

One of the highlights of our yearly trip to Louisville is a visit to Carmichael's Bookstore  on Bardstown Road.  This year the whole store was full of AP readers, chatting, talking about books, recommending favorites.  It is a great bookstore with lots of posted recommendations from the bookstore staff.  This year I walked out without a book purchase.  Good girl!

New Business Card

Heading off into this we adventure called retirement, I decided to make my own business cards to share at the AP reading. For the time being, this is my effort!

Oprah Should Listen to Me

When I blogged about Wild back in April, I went in to school and told all my students that this was going to be the new - fresh and female - Into the Wild.

Now I come to find, Oprah has the same idea!  The Oprah Book Club 2.0 launched in June and her choice was Wild by Cheryl Strayed.   I have thought for some time, Oprah should just be listening to me.  Maybe she is?

Now our county library has Wild on the Summer Reading page.

I'm just saying - TOLD YOU SO!

Coming Attractions - Senior Slideshows So Awesome They Need a Trailer

AP English First Period Senior Slideshow

Senior's last day was today!  A very bittersweet day.  My last AP class at Strongsville High School.  I ended the year as I began it with Billy Collins' Aristotle and then showed this Senior Slideshow.  The principal had excused seniors from their first period classes today, but all of my students except two - you know who you are - were there.  Tissues were distributed.  Memories and a few tears.  Then they wrote their letters to next year's AP students.  I love you kids.  You inspire me to be the best teacher I can be and I mean it when I say - you all get a 5 in Life!

AP English Second Period Senior Slideshow

The Emily Dickinson House and the Little White House Poetry Project

We LOVE visiting Amherst, Massachusetts almost so much that we hated to see our daughter graduate from nearby Hampshire College. This visit, we decided to swing by Emily Dickinson's place one last time and - what a surprise. The yard and park space adjacent to the Dickinson home has been populated by little white houses painted with lines from favorite Dickinson poems. The 40 houses began as a project done by a Deerfield Academy student. We had a lovely time walking around as the sun was setting, finding favorite lines from poems, seeing Emily's garden in full bloom and bidding a sort of farewell to Amherst.

I think I could win a prize with this photo!