I’m a little behind with reviews, not having posted last week. I’ll try to catch up now with slightly shorter reviews.
The last two weeks I read:
In an effort to get to some
of the more popular books of the last couple years, I’ve been listening to a
number of them on audio. That’s how I took in
A Piece of the World. It’s the fictional imagining of the life of a
woman in one of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings. Christina Olson lives on a farm in a
coastal town in Maine with her brother. She’s unable to walk, so her life is primarily
confined to her home. She meets the painter Andrew Wyeth one day, they become
friends, and he spends a great deal of time on her farm in the future decades.
The book alternates between going back in time to Christina’s childhood and
describing the present, the 1940s with Andrew Wyeth hanging around. The
childhood parts felt very much like a middle-grade novel (
Wolf Hollow came to mind), and at one point at the beginning, I
even double-checked that it was, indeed, a book for adults. I enjoyed this
book. It wasn’t flashy or action-packed, but the characters felt real, and the
setting was vivid. I’d recommend this one to anyone needing a reading refresh
after a number of heavy books.
My rating: 3 stars.
I also finished the second in
the Maisie Dobbs mystery series,
Birds of
a Feather. You can
read my review of book one here. In this book, which takes place in the
last 1920s/early 1930s, Maisie is asked to look into the disappearance of a
prominent businessman’s daughter. He is a man used to getting his way, and he
wants her returned at once. But while trying to determine where the woman has
gone, Maisie discovers that the woman’s friends are being murdered one by one.
Who is doing it? Is it the missing woman, or is she the next victim? I enjoyed
the plot of this one more than the first, although the first book sets forth
Maisie’s life and is a good introduction to the characters which continue
throughout the series. One would not have to read them in order, but I think
you’d get the most from them if you do. I really, really like this series. They
are well-written, tight of plot, and have wonderful characters. If you’re looking
for a new series, especially a good British mystery one, I can’t recommend this
one highly enough.
My rating: 4 stars.
I’ve been meaning to read a
book by Melanie Shankle for years now, and when her latest,
Church of the Small Things, came out
recently, I bought a reduced-price copy for my Kindle and enjoyed the beginning
so much I bought it in hardcover. I tell you, the book publishers see my
coming. This was a wonderful book, and an especially good read for Kindle,
because it’s written in essay form, and each one is easily read when you have a
few minutes here or there. Shankle is a Christian author with a fun sense of
humor who writes here about motherhood, friendship, family, and pets. It’s
quite funny, and I loved it. I immediately snapped up two more of her books for
the future. If you enjoy Jen Hatmaker’s writing, you’ll find a similar voice here.
My rating: 4 stars.
I can’t say that I’ve read
everything that Gretchen Rubin has written, but I have read everything she’s
written that’s made her famous: her two happiness books, her book on forming
habits, and now her newest,
The Four
Tendencies. I’m not a big subscriber to personality frameworks, and I am
bored by Rubin’s relentless self-promotion, but wanting to read her latest, I
checked it out on audio. I wasn’t sure if audio would be a good idea for a book
like this, but it worked very well. It is read by the author, which I normally
enjoy, but I kind of find Rubin’s voice grating, so take that for what you
will. This is the presentation of Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework introduced
in her last book,
Better Than Before,
in which she categorized people into four types based on how they respond to and
handle expectations: Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel. The Upholder
upholds inner and outer expectations; the Obliger upholds inner expectations
but struggles to meet outer expectations; the Questioner questions expectations,
usually meeting inner but not outer expectations; and the Rebel rebels against all
expectations. There’s a quiz in the book (and online) that you can take to
determine your type. I’ve taken the quiz at least three times, and I always
forget which tendency I’m pegged as. Listening to the descriptions in the book,
I’m likely what Rubin would label as an Upholder, but I might lean equally
toward Obliger and Questioner depending on the situation (which, Rubin will
make clear, is not really possible). I do have some reservations about this
kind of framework, and this framework in particular. First, I don’t think it’s
helpful for the individual or society as a whole to classify and pigeonhole
folks, no matter what Rubin says. Division creates discord, not harmony.
Second, Rubin discounts any chance that one’s tendencies have anything to do
with nurture, telling us that it’s all nature, and therefore, one cannot change
their tendency, just make allowances for it (and for others’ tendencies). I
just don’t believe you can disregard how someone is raised and socialized.
Third, Rubin discounts religion. This is a common problem I have with her
books. You cannot remove a person’s most basic beliefs about where they come
from and where they’re going and believe that you understand them. Still, if
you like this sort of navel-gazing, the book is well-written, well-researched,
and full of concrete examples.
My rating: 3.5 stars.
My devotion to the Flavia de
Luce mystery series is well-documented here. I love these books with undying adoration.
The fifth book in the series,
Speaking
from among the Bones, is one of my favorites. In this one, tween Flavia de
Luce is present when the church sets to opening a saint’s tomb, but what they
find is the corpse of the church organist, who all had presumed had just up and
left in the night not long ago. Flavia has a new crime to solve. Who did it?
What was the motive? With much sneaking around and even some high danger,
Flavia solves the case and then leads the inspector (and the reader) through
the summary, proud as ever of herself. The backstory of the family losing their
estate (it’s put up for sale in this installment) continues. Also, there is a
crash-bang cliffhanger here that makes me want to read the sixth book
immediately. I enjoyed the crime of this
one more than some of the others, and really, that is the only variable in the
books. Flavia is Flavia, through and through, always—one of the most wonderful
characters in all of literature. Highly recommended, but it might be good to
start at the beginning of the series.
My rating: 4.5 stars.
At the university library
where I work, we’ve created a display of campus members’ favorite books. Each
book is displayed with the submitter’s reasons for loving that particular book.
It was through this display that I became acquainted with Elizabeth Peters and
her Amelia Peabody mystery series. Peabody is a Victorian spinster ahead of her
time who takes a trip to Egypt, picking up a lady companion, Evelyn, along her
way. The women meet up with an archeological group led by two brothers, Mr.
Emerson, a crusty man, and his younger brother, Walter, who takes a shine to
Evelyn; but the possibility of their romance is not without difficulties. The group
is excavating ancient tombs when a mummy repeatedly terrorizes them, causing
harm to each, but not seemingly intent on murder. Has the mummy truly come to
life? Is the apparition a dressed-up local trying to drive the group away from
the tombs? Or is something else going on? This was a wonderful book. I listened
to it, and the narration was perfect. There was much “heart-pounding” action
and some levity provided by the sparring between opinioned Amelia and curmudgeonly
Emerson. And the writing was superb. This is the first book, published in 1975,
in a 19-book series, so I have much ahead of me, even if the books are hard to
acquire. If you can get your hands on a copy or the audio version, I highly
recommend this book, and if the rest in the series is like it, it will be a
long, fun ride.
My rating: 4 stars.
I’ve never been interested in
fashion. I’ve always seen it as an ever-changing, never-ending set of fads that
bleed your wallet dry (how’s that for opinionated). Yet, I like clothes. I like
variety and having beautiful things that make me feel confident and
comfortable. I just don’t like to shop, and I resent purchasing things that are
out-of-date as soon as you take the tags off. My style is simple, traditional
is probably the most apt word. I like slacks and a well-ironed blouse, cable
knit sweaters, skirts, loafers. I prefer cotton and leather, and I always layer.
I dress mainly for warmth, buy most all of my clothes used, and have a million
ways to keep things nice-looking for a LONG time. So you can imagine that my
clothes may be a big dated—if traditional clothing styles can ever be dated. I’ve
been feeling lately like my wardrobe might need a refresh. The capsule wardrobe
appeals to me, but I don’t feel like I have the energy to create one. Still, I wanted
to explore some options, so I picked up
The
Curated Closet from the library. I didn’t really know what to expect, so I
was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved the book. While the book is
written as a plan to revamp your wardrobe, discover your style, and find pieces
to help you express it, I didn’t really sit down to do the exercises the author
sets forth. I sort of did them in my head, and I found that I loved doing them.
While I’ve never been much interested in fashion, I’ve always loved
design, and this book appealed to that
love. What I liked most about the book is that it was never a set of Do’s and
Don’ts. Nothing was ever written in the negative. And the author never pushed
the reader to follow fashion trends. She takes a “if you don’t like something,
don’t wear it, and if you like something, do” attitude and tosses aside the
notion that certain clothes aren’t for certain body types. This was so freeing.
She really puts the ball in the reader’s court to make the most of finding her
style and building a wardrobe she loves and feels confident in. If you’re
looking for a little encouragement to find your style or ways to branch out,
this is a wonderful place to begin. It’s not necessarily about building a
capsule wardrobe but about creating a wardrobe of only pieces you love and that
work well with many other pieces. I liked the book so much I decided to buy my
own copy to spend more time with the exercises she provides. Overall, the book
was very thorough, but there were a couple things I wish the book had included.
One was a pictorial glossary defining different fashion terms. She’d sometimes
use a term, maybe referring to a specific kind of top, and I wouldn’t know what
it meant nor what the top looked like. She’d also talk about different
waistlines and necklines that, had they been pictured, might have sparked something
for me to try. But then, I’m a very visual person. I also would have loved more
information (maybe again, pictures) of mixing different colors and patterns, as
that’s something I’d like to get bolder with in my own style. Also, there wasn’t
much talk of accessorizing, though I suppose most folks can figure that out
without help. I especially loved the section on choosing a color palette; it might
have been my favorite part of the book. All in all, I was really impressed with
this book, and I’m so glad I tried it. I recommend this one to anyone looking at
defining their style or refining their wardrobe.
My rating: 4 stars.
Lastly, I finished a re-read
of
Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. I
read this the first time in April of 2016, and I mentioned in
my review, that I likely
needed to re-read it to get more out of it. I’m not sure I got more out of it
this time, nor did I understand the concepts more fully. I don’t know if it’s
the book or me. I’d ask my husband (a former physics major) for more
information on certain things (specific points in the theory of relativity,
quarks, etc.), and those discussions helped me. It must be difficult to write a
book like this, because you don’t know what a person’s educational or science
background is, nor, necessarily, where to give more explanation and where to
give less. You have to walk the line of giving just enough to define the term
or theory but not so much information as to overwhelm or muddy the waters. You also
must be able to anticipate readers’ questions. The book does well enough, but I’m
not sure physics is a topic I myself can learn from a book. I was able to
follow the discussions in the book well enough, but I was unable to bring it
all together—or to remember exactly what was discussed. So, I guess, my physics
education must continue elsewhere.
My rating: 3 stars.
Last week I began:
Having finished all of my February reads early, I've begun some books off of my March reading list.
My "chunkster" for March is Bunny Mellon, the woman who designed the White House's Rose Garden.
I'm already halfway through the Kindle version of The Nine of Us, Jean Kennedy Smith's memoir of growing up as the eighth of the nine Kennedy children (sister to JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and Ted Kennedy).
And I began the mammoth collection, Pablo Neruda's All the Odes, which is presented in English and Spanish.
My next audiobook:
I picked up a copy of this book recently at a used bookstore, but I had a feeling that if I wished to get to it any time soon, I'd need to pick it up on audio. I have it ready and waiting for me to start this week.
In an effort to get to some
of the more popular books of the last couple years, I’ve been listening to a
number of them on audio. That’s how I took in A Piece of the World. It’s the fictional imagining of the life of a
woman in one of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings. Christina Olson lives on a farm in a
coastal town in Maine with her brother. She’s unable to walk, so her life is primarily
confined to her home. She meets the painter Andrew Wyeth one day, they become
friends, and he spends a great deal of time on her farm in the future decades.
The book alternates between going back in time to Christina’s childhood and
describing the present, the 1940s with Andrew Wyeth hanging around. The
childhood parts felt very much like a middle-grade novel (Wolf Hollow came to mind), and at one point at the beginning, I
even double-checked that it was, indeed, a book for adults. I enjoyed this
book. It wasn’t flashy or action-packed, but the characters felt real, and the
setting was vivid. I’d recommend this one to anyone needing a reading refresh
after a number of heavy books. My rating: 3 stars.
I also finished the second in
the Maisie Dobbs mystery series, Birds of
a Feather. You can read my review of book one here. In this book, which takes place in the
last 1920s/early 1930s, Maisie is asked to look into the disappearance of a
prominent businessman’s daughter. He is a man used to getting his way, and he
wants her returned at once. But while trying to determine where the woman has
gone, Maisie discovers that the woman’s friends are being murdered one by one.
Who is doing it? Is it the missing woman, or is she the next victim? I enjoyed
the plot of this one more than the first, although the first book sets forth
Maisie’s life and is a good introduction to the characters which continue
throughout the series. One would not have to read them in order, but I think
you’d get the most from them if you do. I really, really like this series. They
are well-written, tight of plot, and have wonderful characters. If you’re looking
for a new series, especially a good British mystery one, I can’t recommend this
one highly enough. My rating: 4 stars.
I’ve been meaning to read a
book by Melanie Shankle for years now, and when her latest, Church of the Small Things, came out
recently, I bought a reduced-price copy for my Kindle and enjoyed the beginning
so much I bought it in hardcover. I tell you, the book publishers see my
coming. This was a wonderful book, and an especially good read for Kindle,
because it’s written in essay form, and each one is easily read when you have a
few minutes here or there. Shankle is a Christian author with a fun sense of
humor who writes here about motherhood, friendship, family, and pets. It’s
quite funny, and I loved it. I immediately snapped up two more of her books for
the future. If you enjoy Jen Hatmaker’s writing, you’ll find a similar voice here.
My rating: 4 stars.
I can’t say that I’ve read
everything that Gretchen Rubin has written, but I have read everything she’s
written that’s made her famous: her two happiness books, her book on forming
habits, and now her newest, The Four
Tendencies. I’m not a big subscriber to personality frameworks, and I am
bored by Rubin’s relentless self-promotion, but wanting to read her latest, I
checked it out on audio. I wasn’t sure if audio would be a good idea for a book
like this, but it worked very well. It is read by the author, which I normally
enjoy, but I kind of find Rubin’s voice grating, so take that for what you
will. This is the presentation of Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework introduced
in her last book, Better Than Before,
in which she categorized people into four types based on how they respond to and
handle expectations: Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, and Rebel. The Upholder
upholds inner and outer expectations; the Obliger upholds inner expectations
but struggles to meet outer expectations; the Questioner questions expectations,
usually meeting inner but not outer expectations; and the Rebel rebels against all
expectations. There’s a quiz in the book (and online) that you can take to
determine your type. I’ve taken the quiz at least three times, and I always
forget which tendency I’m pegged as. Listening to the descriptions in the book,
I’m likely what Rubin would label as an Upholder, but I might lean equally
toward Obliger and Questioner depending on the situation (which, Rubin will
make clear, is not really possible). I do have some reservations about this
kind of framework, and this framework in particular. First, I don’t think it’s
helpful for the individual or society as a whole to classify and pigeonhole
folks, no matter what Rubin says. Division creates discord, not harmony.
Second, Rubin discounts any chance that one’s tendencies have anything to do
with nurture, telling us that it’s all nature, and therefore, one cannot change
their tendency, just make allowances for it (and for others’ tendencies). I
just don’t believe you can disregard how someone is raised and socialized.
Third, Rubin discounts religion. This is a common problem I have with her
books. You cannot remove a person’s most basic beliefs about where they come
from and where they’re going and believe that you understand them. Still, if
you like this sort of navel-gazing, the book is well-written, well-researched,
and full of concrete examples. My rating: 3.5 stars.
My devotion to the Flavia de
Luce mystery series is well-documented here. I love these books with undying adoration.
The fifth book in the series, Speaking
from among the Bones, is one of my favorites. In this one, tween Flavia de
Luce is present when the church sets to opening a saint’s tomb, but what they
find is the corpse of the church organist, who all had presumed had just up and
left in the night not long ago. Flavia has a new crime to solve. Who did it?
What was the motive? With much sneaking around and even some high danger,
Flavia solves the case and then leads the inspector (and the reader) through
the summary, proud as ever of herself. The backstory of the family losing their
estate (it’s put up for sale in this installment) continues. Also, there is a
crash-bang cliffhanger here that makes me want to read the sixth book immediately. I enjoyed the crime of this
one more than some of the others, and really, that is the only variable in the
books. Flavia is Flavia, through and through, always—one of the most wonderful
characters in all of literature. Highly recommended, but it might be good to
start at the beginning of the series. My rating: 4.5 stars.
At the university library
where I work, we’ve created a display of campus members’ favorite books. Each
book is displayed with the submitter’s reasons for loving that particular book.
It was through this display that I became acquainted with Elizabeth Peters and
her Amelia Peabody mystery series. Peabody is a Victorian spinster ahead of her
time who takes a trip to Egypt, picking up a lady companion, Evelyn, along her
way. The women meet up with an archeological group led by two brothers, Mr.
Emerson, a crusty man, and his younger brother, Walter, who takes a shine to
Evelyn; but the possibility of their romance is not without difficulties. The group
is excavating ancient tombs when a mummy repeatedly terrorizes them, causing
harm to each, but not seemingly intent on murder. Has the mummy truly come to
life? Is the apparition a dressed-up local trying to drive the group away from
the tombs? Or is something else going on? This was a wonderful book. I listened
to it, and the narration was perfect. There was much “heart-pounding” action
and some levity provided by the sparring between opinioned Amelia and curmudgeonly
Emerson. And the writing was superb. This is the first book, published in 1975,
in a 19-book series, so I have much ahead of me, even if the books are hard to
acquire. If you can get your hands on a copy or the audio version, I highly
recommend this book, and if the rest in the series is like it, it will be a
long, fun ride. My rating: 4 stars.
I’ve never been interested in
fashion. I’ve always seen it as an ever-changing, never-ending set of fads that
bleed your wallet dry (how’s that for opinionated). Yet, I like clothes. I like
variety and having beautiful things that make me feel confident and
comfortable. I just don’t like to shop, and I resent purchasing things that are
out-of-date as soon as you take the tags off. My style is simple, traditional
is probably the most apt word. I like slacks and a well-ironed blouse, cable
knit sweaters, skirts, loafers. I prefer cotton and leather, and I always layer.
I dress mainly for warmth, buy most all of my clothes used, and have a million
ways to keep things nice-looking for a LONG time. So you can imagine that my
clothes may be a big dated—if traditional clothing styles can ever be dated. I’ve
been feeling lately like my wardrobe might need a refresh. The capsule wardrobe
appeals to me, but I don’t feel like I have the energy to create one. Still, I wanted
to explore some options, so I picked up The
Curated Closet from the library. I didn’t really know what to expect, so I
was pleasantly surprised to find that I loved the book. While the book is
written as a plan to revamp your wardrobe, discover your style, and find pieces
to help you express it, I didn’t really sit down to do the exercises the author
sets forth. I sort of did them in my head, and I found that I loved doing them.
While I’ve never been much interested in fashion, I’ve always loved design, and this book appealed to that
love. What I liked most about the book is that it was never a set of Do’s and
Don’ts. Nothing was ever written in the negative. And the author never pushed
the reader to follow fashion trends. She takes a “if you don’t like something,
don’t wear it, and if you like something, do” attitude and tosses aside the
notion that certain clothes aren’t for certain body types. This was so freeing.
She really puts the ball in the reader’s court to make the most of finding her
style and building a wardrobe she loves and feels confident in. If you’re
looking for a little encouragement to find your style or ways to branch out,
this is a wonderful place to begin. It’s not necessarily about building a
capsule wardrobe but about creating a wardrobe of only pieces you love and that
work well with many other pieces. I liked the book so much I decided to buy my
own copy to spend more time with the exercises she provides. Overall, the book
was very thorough, but there were a couple things I wish the book had included.
One was a pictorial glossary defining different fashion terms. She’d sometimes
use a term, maybe referring to a specific kind of top, and I wouldn’t know what
it meant nor what the top looked like. She’d also talk about different
waistlines and necklines that, had they been pictured, might have sparked something
for me to try. But then, I’m a very visual person. I also would have loved more
information (maybe again, pictures) of mixing different colors and patterns, as
that’s something I’d like to get bolder with in my own style. Also, there wasn’t
much talk of accessorizing, though I suppose most folks can figure that out
without help. I especially loved the section on choosing a color palette; it might
have been my favorite part of the book. All in all, I was really impressed with
this book, and I’m so glad I tried it. I recommend this one to anyone looking at
defining their style or refining their wardrobe. My rating: 4 stars.
Lastly, I finished a re-read
of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. I
read this the first time in April of 2016, and I mentioned in my review, that I likely
needed to re-read it to get more out of it. I’m not sure I got more out of it
this time, nor did I understand the concepts more fully. I don’t know if it’s
the book or me. I’d ask my husband (a former physics major) for more
information on certain things (specific points in the theory of relativity,
quarks, etc.), and those discussions helped me. It must be difficult to write a
book like this, because you don’t know what a person’s educational or science
background is, nor, necessarily, where to give more explanation and where to
give less. You have to walk the line of giving just enough to define the term
or theory but not so much information as to overwhelm or muddy the waters. You also
must be able to anticipate readers’ questions. The book does well enough, but I’m
not sure physics is a topic I myself can learn from a book. I was able to
follow the discussions in the book well enough, but I was unable to bring it
all together—or to remember exactly what was discussed. So, I guess, my physics
education must continue elsewhere. My rating: 3 stars. 
Angela's Ashes was a re-read for me. I read it shortly after it came out in 1996 or 1997, and at the time I thought it was the best book I'd ever read. I still think it's one of the best. I tend to spend a lot of time with a book looking at how it was written, watching it come together, looking for seams and loose threads. This book is nearly flawless. It's Frank McCourt's memoir of growing up in poverty in Limerick, Ireland in the 1930s and '40s. And while that sounds depressing and dark, and while you just want to shake the alcoholic father who drinks his wages, while you shake your head over the odd Irish superstitions of the adults, and while you want to rail against the Catholic church and its prejudices and injustices, how the book is told is what keeps you reading. Seldom have I read a book that keeps me reading like this one does. McCourt is a born storyteller. I don't know how well this book is known anymore. It won the Pulitzer Prize when it came out, and everyone read it then. It was also made into a film, which didn't really do the book justice. Having loved it for 20 years now, I don't have a frame of reference for how well-known it is anymore, but if you love memoirs and haven't read it, remedy that right away. I consider it one of the finest books ever written (how's that for lofty?) and a cornerstone of the memoir genre. And I'm so glad to see it stood the test of time for me. My rating: 5 stars. 
In my quest to read some of the books that "everyone but me" has read, I picked up a copy of Station Eleven. Then I chickened out a little and decided to listen to it on audio in case I needed to tune out particularly dark parts. Post-apocalyptic novels hold no appeal to me, and while I can handle heavy books, I don't care much for dark books. But I'd read a review over the years that said the book was hopeful and the sense of community created by the survivors (can I ask: how can you call it post-apocalyptic if there are survivors?) was heartwarming. I guess I beg to differ. While I'm sure it could have been much, much darker, I wasn't impressed by any hopeful or heartwarming feelings. To me it was just depressing and heavy and bleak. The story is this: the Georgian flu, a strain of flu deadlier than any previous strain, nearly wipes out human civilization on earth. The world goes dark, and the people left concern themselves with little more than survival. The book follows a dozen or so characters through the barren world and offers flashbacks to their pre-post-apocalyptic lives. (Did I just coin a term there?) It only took me a few days to listen to it, I purposely sped through it to have it over with quickly and before it got too far into my head. What kept me listening was the hope that it would all come together in an imaginative way or that there would be a great hopeful conclusion. While I didn't end with a total fade to black, it didn't seem to resolve at all, and I was disappointed. The writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't stellar, and the characters seemed real enough, though I didn't care deeply for any of them. I will say that I was annoyed by the number of diverse groups the author ticked off her list. We had white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern, gay, disabled, mentally ill, rich, poor, young, old, etc. The diversity seemed forced (or maybe Toronto is a much more diverse place than I know?). Also, I wanted an explanation as to why these folks survived when everyone else perished. But overall, my main problem with the book is that the author and I just have a vastly different world view. In a post-pandemic world, I would expect that people would come together with love rather than live in suspicion and kill in fear; I would expect people to pull closer to God rather than become fanatics and their own prophets. It all just left me depressed and ready to move on to something brighter. My rating: 3.5 stars.
I finished two short books of poetry last week, and I loved them both. First was Jill Bialosky's The Players. I read Bialosky's Poetry Will Save Your Life last fall, and I loved it so much I just had to find a book of her poems. I bought The Players and finally got to it last week. It's a wonderful collection. Bialosky's poetry is accessible but not without depth. When I finished, I downloaded an older collection, The End of Desire, to my Kindle for future perusal. Here is one of my favorite poems in the book: The Mothers. My rating: 4 stars.
Memoir
is one of my very favorite genres. There’s so much to choose from. One of the
absolute best is Frank McCourt’s Angela’s
Ashes about his poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland. It is so beautifully
written, witty, and poignant. I recently read West with the Night, Beryl Markham’s memoir about growing up in
Africa. The writing is superb. One of the most charming and unconventional memoirs
I’ve ever read is Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s Encyclopedia
of an Ordinary Life, which is her life written in encyclopedia form. I dare
any teenager to read this and not immediately start writing their own
encyclopedic memoir. A celebrity memoir that just blew me away (and I sincerely
hope he wrote it himself) is Andre Agassi’s Open about his life in tennis. It’s the most honest memoir I think
I’ve ever read. And by “honest” I don’t mean tell-all. I also think Following Atticus is a beautiful memoir
of author Tom Ryan’s life with his hiking companion, miniature Schnauzer,
Atticus. A bonus is that the dog doesn’t die at the end of the book! And I love
Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country
about his travels in Australia. Bryson grew up in America, then spent a large
chunk of his life in England only to return to America later. I’m unsure where
he is now. He writes a lot of travel memoirs which are hilarious and
exhaustively researched. He should be a go-to when teaching about good narrative.
A book
I think high school English classes would love to read and discuss is Fredrik
Backman’s Beartown. It’s the story
of a small town kept alive only by its hockey program, the hockey star’s rape
of a classmate, and the way the town deals with the crime. If they cover it up,
they do an injustice to his victim, but if they reveal it, their town will be
ruined. It’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read. There’s so much to discuss
here, and it’s so well-written it almost hurt to read it. Another good book
about teens is Eleanor & Park,
about a teen romance, abuse, and being who you are. A very real story. The Rocket Boys is a memoir by Homer
Hickam (the movie version of the book is called October Sky) about a group of high school boys in a coal-mining town
of West Virginia in the 1950s who decide to build and launch rockets. Ms. Marvel is a comic series about a
Muslim Jersey City teen who rights wrongs. Books with younger characters that
are worth discussing in high school and college classes are Wonder (likely today’s high school
students have already read it, though) and The
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, the first in the Flavia de Luce mystery
series which are just a whole lot of fun. This is a rare case of a book with a
child main character (Flavia is 11, I believe) that’s written for adults.
