Godfrey: May I be frank?
Irene: Is that your name?
Godfrey: No, my name is Godfrey.
Irene: Oh. Well, be Frank.

--My Man Godfrey

So I'm going to be Frank: I'm having a hard time with these posts from Jack and Odious. When I first read Pascal, I thought he was exactly right about the human urge to be distracted from wretchedness, but it's only recently that I've realized I don't have that urge. Oh, sure, there are times when I watch TV or read a mystery novel because I don't want to think about cleaning the house, but for the most part, if I'm wretched I'm just wretched (and everyone knows about it). My journal entries will certainly attest to my tendency towards self-flagellation, while my husband will attest to my tendency towards tackling problems the second they arise--in parking lots, bathrooms, hiking trails, and other random spots. I have an almost pathological fear of turning a blind eye to things that bother me, much to his dismay. Why is this? I don't know, but it's certainly linked to my often brutal honesty. I can't hide my feelings; I can't pretend things are okay when they're not; I can't spend very long being wretched. So I pour out all the things simmering in my head--to God, to Odious, to my mother, to my journal--and then, pretty much, I'm okay. And that's just the way I am. This, too, is the way I am, that I have to make sure to add the disclaimer that I don't think Jack and Odious are wrong, far from it--I just don't understand.

Okay, so now I'm going to stop being Frank and go back to being Godfrey--er, I mean Kate.

Mental Multivitamin linked to this list of books "every adult should read before they die". If you can get past the shocking grammar of that sentence, here's the list (I've read the ones in bold):

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quiet on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D'urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

Apparently I've got eight to go--not bad. Of course, I doubt I'll actually read those eight, other than All Quiet on the Western Front and possibly The Time Traveller's Wife because my mother recommended it. It's certainly a bizarre list, but then, librarians are an odd bunch. (I think I'm allowed to make that comment since I once was a librarian, or at least a library assistant. Anyway, no offense to Librarianne!)

And how I am doing on my own list? Well, I've gotten a bit distracted by reading at whim lately (mostly Elizabeth George, I must admit), but I think for three months' progress I'm doing pretty well. So far the best has been Death Comes To The Archbishop. I'm always surprised at how good Willa Cather's novels are, and I don't know why I should be--of the eight or so that I've read, there hasn't yet been a doozy. Her prose is clear and lucid and elegant, and her characters so thoughtfully created that they make me want to cry; I can't recommend her enough. I'd shied away from this book previously, for reasons lost to my memory, but I loved every word of the quietly good priest's life.

And finally, I've found some books that I REALLY want. I was reading The Old Schoolhouse homeschooling magazine at Borders today, and discovered this website and these lovely books illustrated by a homeschooler whose name is so familiar that I believe she was the friend of a friend years ago. At some point I will purchase at least one of her books, but I've had my splurge for today (no, not at Borders--at a restaurant supply store. I bought a pizza cutter, a fine mesh strainer, a pastry brush, and a rubber spatula--oh so exciting). Later, after a few more paychecks have rolled in...

Jack is back! That, and the exhortation that it is my duty to recommend books to my friends, and a day off, all combine to put me in front of the computer determined to write something.

I've been reading Elizabeth George's mysteries as if there were an infinite supply; after getting off work yesterday, I read two. No, I didn't do anything else. It was nice, but I think I might be ready for a break, which is good because I think I've reread them all within the past few weeks. Besides this potato chip fare, I've been reading more Iris Murdoch, who I like quite well. I'm not sure why she isn't a more well-known writer, because her style is unusual and seems to have affected literature in general. It may be, however, because she wrote so many novels without producing any that particularly stand out from the rest; it'd be difficult to choose one for a high school English class or a 100 best novels list, for example. Indeed, of the five or six that I've read, it's hard to choose a "favorite" or even one that I'd say was specifically well-done. For the first time I'm having the experience of liking the author more than her books, or maybe outside of her books.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be one I read a few weeks ago--An Unofficial Rose. I might never have picked this one up, since our library branch doesn't have it, were it not for a book of essays I found at Powell's last year. I believe I mentioned it at the time, since I'm always pleased to find anything by A.S. Byatt. This book, Imagining Characters, is a collection of discussions Byatt had with a friend, a psychologist named Ignes Sodre, and has proved quite fascinating and insightful on Mansfield Park, Villette, and The Professor's House thus far. Because the two women discuss the books so deeply, I wanted to read each book before reading its companion discussion, so that's why I sought out An Unofficial Rose.

One might make the claim that Murdoch's books aren't really about anything--there's not much of a plot to summarize or a conclusion to analyze. But before you turn away with a yawn of disinterest, let me say that in my opinion, they're about something crucially important and largely misunderstood. In The Magus, John Fowles says that "Men see objects and women see the relationship between objects"; well, Iris Murdoch had astonishingly clear vision. In all her novels she explores the strangenesses of relationships and the way people interact with each other, to an almost excruciating degree. To her there is nothing more absorbing than the ways people live their lives, and I'm inclined to agree.

If I were to attempt a summary of this novel, it would read something like a soap opera episode (the blurb on the back of my library copy was appalling): When Hugh's wife dies, he decides to go back to his mistress Emma. Emma's companion, Lindsey, is having an affair with Randall, Hugh's son. Randall has a fight with his wife Ann and leaves the house. His daughter Miranda flirts with her cousin Penn who is visiting from Australia. Mildred, a family friend, has designs on Hugh because her husband Humphrey is gay. Humphrey takes Penn to London. Felix, Mildred and Humphrey's son, has adored Ann for years, but so has the vicar. Randall convinces Hugh to sell his beloved painting so that he can use the money to marry Lindsey. Hugh finds out that Emma is dying.

Are you reeling yet? The novel actually wasn't that hard to follow, partly because the relationships are so clearly delineated that they define the characters. Here's a slightly more lucid review; and do look for the book by A.S. Byatt as well, especially if you've read or plan to read any of the other novels she discusses.

There are many things for which I could blame my month-long disappearance, but the truth is I simply haven't been in the mood. I'm going to try from now on to post once a week, which I think is a fair goal. But in the meantime, as a little gift to you in apology for my absence, here is the poem I wrote this morning.


I stand before the shelf of slouching books,
cocking my head to scan the lazily leaning spines,
and pause in my search to wonder what it's like
for Sylvia Plath and Proust to live next-door.
Do they talk of a child's drowsy morning sleep
or eternal sleep? At night, in the flash of
passing cars, do they murmur to each other,
remembering things past--two lives, one brief,
one six volumes long, both deeply introspective.
Their conversation is surely more companionable
than that of Patrick O'Brian and Flannery O'Connor,
who simply stare at each other, awkward and at sea,
with nothing at all to say. But Dickens and Dumas
make up for them, filling the long days with
story-telling contests, bartering descriptions
and comparing characters, each wilder than the last.
Faulkner and Fitzgerald fight constantly,
while Virginia Woolf hunches over her knitting,
trying desperately to ignore the jovial,
chuckling P.G. Wodehouse.
But here, now, is the book I'm looking for.
I slide Anna Karenina from the shelf
and go off to bed, leaving Mark Twain
to stretch his arms in relief and invite Thurber
to come over for a frog-jumping contest.

Yikes, I didn't mean that last post to be so depressing. I just get tired of the doomsayers! The end may very well be nigh, but that doesn't necessarily mean things are any worse than they've ever been. Different, yes, but worse? Frankly I'm perfectly happy not to have to test my faith against lions and gladiators.

I was thinking about sinning clergy while reading The Way of All Flesh. There are many examples of the subject in the novel, the greatest being the serious emotional abuse that Theodore Pontifex, a well-respected clergyman, inflicted upon his children, but the one that particularly struck me was the practice of buying a living. This concept comes up all the time in English literature (the privilege supposedly taken away from Wickham in P&P, for instance), and it's a bizarre one. Taking orders was a career like any other during that time, one for second sons or less-privileged men, rather than a calling. And if you wanted a good place, you'd better have some cash available. Is this really any better than current clergical sins? Can we claim that people in the 19th century were really more devout or Biblically literate? More of them may have been able to recite their chatecism, but I'm not sure that counts, and they certainly didn't all go to church. The narrator of The Way of All Flesh didn't, nor did several of the other characters, and even the protagonist rejects Religion in the end.

Speaking of the time frame, I realized that the reason I liked this book so much was because it didn't really belong on a list of modern novels. While it was published after the turn of the century, Butler actually wrote it in the 1870's, so it's set in an era in which I feel right at home. It's a good novel, too, though it begins weakly; I nearly despaired when after the first 50 pages I still wasn't sure who the hero was. Actually I think it ends weakly too, but that may be intentional. As I said, the protagonist rejects Religion, but he never really understood it in the first place. He never had a relationship with God, so he couldn't sever it; rather, he turned his back on the church and his father's idea of Religion. And I can hardly blame him.

Poor Ernest Pontifex grew up under the tyranny of selfish and narrow-minded parents. He was sent to a school that seemed indifferent to providing moral strictures or regulations of any kind until forced, and the aunt who befriended him died suddenly. The woman he fell in love with turned out to be a drunkard, and his desires to live a quiet, simple, common life were trampled by everyone around him. The narrator, an old family friend, comes off as Ernest's savior, but only in a material sense. In the end Ernest is just as lost as he ever was, and maybe that is the way of all flesh.

Oh dear, this post is depressing too.

This post from Librarianne reminded me of a similar list given to my Bible study, of seven indicators that a nation is in trouble:

1.All rules broken
2.Bibical illiteracy
3.Sinning clergy
4.Uncontrolled lust
5.Sinning leaders
6.Deceitful prosperity
7.Excessively litigious

It's easy to read these lists and find oneself nodding with recognition--"Yes, it's true, that's exactly what's happening, our nation is in trouble." Well, this list was compiled by a Biblical scholar studying the book of Hosea. All these things were happening around 2700 years ago! When in history has there been a time when everything was really good, when everybody obeyed the laws, knew their Scripture, controlled their lusts? When have all leaders and clergymen been upright moral beacons? Haven't there always been people who gained wealth through illegitimate means and brought ridiculous lawsuits to court? I could go on to Librarianne's list, but you catch my drift. We live in a fallen world peopled by fallible beings who make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Yeah, we're in trouble. So what else is new? According to Solomon, nothing under the sun.

Well, I'm feeling proud of myself. I've already read three of the books on my list for 2006, and am working on two more. It shouldn't be surprising, since I do respond well to lists; but somehow I really thought reading at whim would overcome any resolutions. I did get terribly sidetracked by Rebecca Wells' latest novel, Ya-Yas in Bloom (it's always fun to revisit characters--like seeing old friends), and a Ruth Rendell mystery, but then hauled myself back with The Turn of the Screw. [By the way, I added to my 2006 list after posting about it; it now includes about thirty other books that have been patiently waiting on the shelf in my bedroom for who knows how long.]

Henry James is in love with commas. I've decided I don't think he's a very good writer, but this may be unfair since it's been ages since I read any of his other books; however, it's annoying to be constantly rereading sentences in an attempt to discover what the author is trying to say. And he really does love commas. I'm quite fond of them myself, but make the effort, at least, to try, to the best of my ability, to control this tendency. (It was shocking how much I wanted to add 'like' and 'you know' to that last sentence...)

Anyway, I remember The Turn of the Screw as being a bizarre book, but I'd forgotten how absurd it is. I suppose in a way it's scary, but I kept wanting to laugh at the melodrama, not to mention the inexplicable lack of clarity. Was it that he couldn't think of things horrible enough, or that he didn't want to shock his readers? Why aren't we told what exactly happened in that house? I found upon this reading that I didn't much care, but it's strange nevertheless. Perhaps James thought that two creepy children, two ghosts, and two impressionable women (mix together in a remote mansion, shake, and serve chilled) were enough to terrify without the bother of details. Also, I wonder why he set it up as a story being told to a group of people, then didn't return to them in the end and give their reaction. If he felt that would be anticlimactic, why didn't he change the beginning? What was wrong with his editor, darn it, and why is this a classic? With these questions filling my mind, I'm unsure why I decided to read the book again. Hopefully this will remind me not to try a third time.

Two Things Meme (from Writing and Living)

2 names you go by:
1. Katy
2. Sweetie

2 parts of your heritage:
1) Norwegian
2) German (These are the main ones. According to my mother, there's also English, French, Scottish, Irish, Belgian, and Swiss.)

2 things that scare you:
1. Not knowing what's going on
2. Stormy nights

2 of your everyday essentials:
1) Reading
2) Carbohydrates

2 things you are wearing right now:
1) My favorite sweater (shapeless and brown with multicolored flecks; also Odious's favorite, both on me and on him)
2) My favorite pants (pink corduroy)

2 favorite bands or musical artists:
1) Over the Rhine
2) Sarah MacLachlan (I know these are a real shock, since neither one is EVER listed in my On The Stereo sidebar...)

2 things you want in a relationship (other than real love):
1) Honesty
2) Intellectual stimulation

2 truths:
1) Last night at my mother's I had three helpings of her homemade macaroni and cheese. It was really, really good.
2) In the last month I've watched (on DVD) the first season of Felicity, the first season of Veronica Mars, and most of the fifth season of Angel.

2 physical things that appeal to you (in the opposite sex):
1) A rugged outdoorsy physique
2) Biceps

2 of your favorite hobbies:
1) Reading
2) Crocheting

2 things you want really badly:
1) A strawbale house
2) A working farm

2 places you want to go on vacation:
1) Italy
2) The French countryside

2 things you want to do before you die:
1) Build a strawbale house
2) Publish a novel

2 ways that you are stereotypically a chick:
1) I talk things to death.
2) I have a very low tolerance for alcohol.

2 things you are thinking about now:
1) That I should make pumpkin soup and buttermilk biscuits for dinner tonight.
2) That I'm going to watch one disk of the second season of Felicity.

2 stores you shop at:
1) Powell's City of Books
2) Trader Joe's

2 people I would like to see take this quiz:
Whoever.

Reading has always been such a necessary part of life for me that I've never thought of looking back at the previous year's book list or making a new one for the coming year. Other than the occasional "Read more classics", books haven't figured much in my New Year's resolutions. I like the idea of such a summing-up, but I'm afraid the urge to read at whim might prove too overwhelming. On the other hand, I usually respond well to lists, and I know one in particular that will provice much encouragement in the year to come. One of our Christmas gifts came with the Modern Library list of 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century (yes, another one of those!), of which the sender had read all but a few and Odious and I have read only a few. It was rather more impressive than the lists we'd been working through before. I've got a long way to go. Here are the ones I think I'll start with:

Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry
The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren
The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller
The Maltese Falcon, Dashiel Hammett
Death Comes to the Archbishop, Willa Cather
Main Street, Sinclair Lewis
A Bend in the River, V.S. Naipaul
Scoop, Evelyn Waugh
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark
The Magus, John Fowles
The Magnificent Ambersons, Booth Tarkington

In addition to these, I've got to break my library habit of day-absorbing novels, and get to work on the stacks growing in my bedroom. We own way too many books that I haven't yet read, and they're taunting me.

As for the year in review, I'm afraid my book list is too long and too unimpressive to post verbatim, so maybe I'll just mention my favorites. Some of them have, of course, already been discussed here, but they're certainly worth a second recommendation.

The Professor's House, Willa Cather

A beautiful little book that captured me completely.

Treve, Albert Payson Terhune

I was thrilled to find this book by a favorite childhood author in the bargain rack of a secondhand bookstore; it's a predictable but entirely enjoyable dog story.

Because of Winn-Dixie, Kate Dicamillo

Haven't seen the movie; don't want to.

The Ice House, Minette Walters

The first by this author that I read, and the most clear in my mind. A creepy, thoroughly absorbing crime novel.

All Passion Spent, Vita Sackville-West

Whatever I was expecting from this book, it was not what I got, and I loved it.

How the Irish Saved Civilization, Thomas Cahill

Must add Cahill's other books to my 2006 list...

Beyond the Shadowlands, Wayne Martindale

A fine, intelligent look at C.S. Lewis's views on heaven and hell; very enlightening.

Young Wizards series and The Book of Night With Moon, Diane Duane
Dark Lord of Derkholm and The Year of the Griffin, Diana Wynne Jones

I was introduced to both these authors last year, which makes it a red-letter year. I'm astounded never to have read them before, and I can't recommend them highly enough to those who enjoy good-quality young-adult literature.

View from a Sketchbook, Marjolein Bastin

You've seen her artwork before, on cards or calendars--delicate watercolors of birds and flowers. This peek at her life is lovely too.

Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell

I received the BBC miniseries for Christmas, and can't wait to watch it.

Undaunted Courage, Stephen E. Ambrose

A must-read upon moving to Oregon. Possibly plagiarized, but interesting and readable.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, Daniel Mark Epstein

An excellent biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, which inspired me to read her beautiful poetry.

Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver

I don't know how many times my mother recommended this to me, and I should have read it sooner. It changed the way I think about the world and how it works.

How To Read A Book, Mortimer Adler

He's annoying, but smart. I may have to read this once a year.

Sons and Lovers, D.H. Lawrence

After Women in Love, I read a lot of Lawrence before finding another book as good. This one is it.

Ina May's Guide to Childbirth, Ina May Gaskin

The expert! She's seen it all, and tells it like it is. If you're pregnant or planning to be, read this book.

Inkheart, Cornelia Funke

I love books about books, and this is a good story, plain and simple.

A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle

I've already raved about this, but it is possibly my favorite L'Engle. To call it luminous sounds like a book blurb, but it's true.

The Jungle, Upton Sinclair

I shuddered, and wanted to avert my eyes, but mostly because not much has changed. Scary.

Birthing From Within, Pam England

Get rid of What To Expect When You're Expecting--yes, just drop it right in the trashcan--and read this instead.

Od Magic, Patricia McKillip

Right on schedule, a new and lovely book by this disgustingly prolific writer.

Well-Schooled In Murder, Elizabeth George

I somehow managed to miss this Thomas Linley mystery until now, but it's one of the best.

No Name, Wilkie Collins

Gothic novels are so awesome...

Child of a Rainless Year, Jane Lindskold

Weird and magical.

Isabel's Daughter and The Baker's Apprentice, Judith Ryan Hendricks

More delightful books by the author of Bread Alone--yum.

Merry Christmas! After a tedious drive through Portland this afternoon we rescued two sisters from the airport, and tomorrow will head up to my mother's house for a long weekend of feasting and fun. I can't wait. This week has been tough, for various reasons, and I really need the distraction of, well, Christmas. There are only two things that keep this weekend from promising perfection--one is that we are missing a sister, who has stubbornly decided to see what a holiday without her family is like. The other thing is a little silly, but I never like to leave my kitties at any time, and even though I know they have no idea it's Christmas, it feels sort of treacherous to leave them behind while we go have fun. What I'd really like is for everyone I love to be altogether in the same place, with nobody missing anything or anyone. But I guess that's for a life after this imperfect one.

Anyway, be well, be safe, and be happy. Share the love of Christ and rejoice in His birth!

It's official: my husband and I are library junkies. Since we moved to this apartment in July, we've gotten into the habit of walking up to the library about three times a week, which feels slightly excessive. Sometimes I even check out books I know I won't ever read! Anyway, as a special treat for our anniversary today, we decided to drive over to a bigger library branch (don't worry, we're also going out for a nice dinner in about an hour), where we spent well over an hour wandering the stacks, every now and then meeting up to check out each other's treasures. We were worse than kids in a candy store; we were addicts. I found myself snatching books off the shelves as if it had been months since I'd visited a library (instead of last Saturday--yes, three days ago) and as if I'd never be in one again. And yes, we have been to this branch numerous times, but somehow today it was like a whole new world.

So this is what I found:

The Haunted Hotel, Wilkie Collins
"In the year 1860, the reputation of Doctor Wybrow as a London physician reached its highest point."

Making Your Small Farm Possible, Ron Macher
"When you are disking a field to plant corn, the sun is shining, and the earth smells fresh, you are probably not thinking about whether that process will make you money."

Onions in the Stew, Betty MacDonald
"For twelve years, we MacDonalds have been living on an island in Puget Sound."

The Gypsy, Steven Brust and Megan Lindholm
"There is something about the sound of the tambourine."

How To Start A Home-Based Craft Business, Kenn Oberrecht
"Among the many businesses that can be operated from a home, craft businesses are particularly suitable."

Blackbird House, Alice Hoffman
"It was said that boys should go on their first sea voyage at the age of ten, but surely this notion was never put forth by anyone's mother."

The Tooth Fairy, Graham Joyce
"Clive was on the far side of the green pond, torturing a king-crested newt."

Fitcher's Brides, Gregory Frost
"Crack! goes the whip. She flinches at the sound."

Child of a Rainless Year, Jane Lindskold
"Color is the great magic."

Isabel's Daughter, Judith Ryan Hendricks
"Once in history class I made a time line."

Launching Your Home-Based Business, David H. Bangs, Jr
"Do you dream of throwing in the corporate towel and having only yourself to answer to?"

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Third Annual Collection
"The day that Donna and Piggy and Russ went to see the Edge of the World was a hot one." (Michael Swanwick, 'The Edge of the World')

Reader beware: I've had coffee this morning. Odious and I do not drink coffee often, for the good reason that it makes both of us astonishingly unproductive. We spent over an hour at the dining table talking about our house plans; all well and good, but nothing actually got done. And since we have Christmas packages to box up and mail, gingerbread men to be frosted, and 7-layer bars to bake, coffee was perhaps a bad idea. On the other hand, I'm in a much better mood than I was upon waking.

Unrelated things that popped into my head as the coffee hit my bloodstream... I know most of you already read Odious and Peculiar, but for those of you who don't I must recommend this post. It tickled me exceedingly. The game was fun, too, though it took a little practice to give useful answers to the questions.

And (I told you this would be unrelated), with sufficent support, Diane Duane wants to write a third feline wizard book. If only I had $20 to pledge toward it at this point! Maybe in a few months... I've previously recommended the first of these books, The Book of Night with Moon, but it's certainly worth mentioning again. Most books with animal protagonists I find annoying; Watership Down and The Wind in the Willows are hard acts to follow. Diane Duane, however, makes feline wizards not only believable but probable; her writing has made me view our cats in a very different light. She has the ability (which I and most other people do not) of writing about animals as people without anthropomorphizing; that is to say, her feline wizards are cats, not humans in cat form. It's quite a remarkable talent.

Finally (these really should be separate posts, but I'm feeling lazy), I had a chance to play I'm Neek last night. I was in bed reading Nine Horses, as a pleasant compromise before I can get hold of Billy Collins' latest collection, The Trouble With Poetry, and one of the poems inspired me to get up and find my copy of Coventry Patmore's poetry. While I was up I grabbed the other book I was reading, and as I re-entered the room I realized that I was the only person in the world to be holding both Coventry Patmore and Wilkie Collins' No Name at the same time. Neek indeed.

So Semicolon wants to know more about my list of novels that don't make you want to kill yourself. Always happy to oblige! Of the five she mentioned, I've previously reviewed Bread Alone, The Deed of Paksenarrion, and Tam Lin. The review of Bread Alone includes a decent synopsis, but the other two are not so clear. Both are fantasy novels, I'll say right off, since I know there are those who don't enjoy the genre. The Deed of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon, is a "sword and sorcery" fantasy, about a young girl who runs away from her father's sheep farm to join the army. Paks is one of my favorite characters ever, because she is really and truly good without thinking about it; she knows what is right and she follows it unerringly. After such a description one would expect her to be boring, but in fact she is one of the most interesting and multidimensional characters in the fantasy genre, and her story unusual and thrilling. This book also deals with religion better than any other fantasy book I've read; it is an integral part of the world, and, despite being polytheistic, is realistic and believable. I should mention that it's quite long, being actually a trilogy (Sheepfarmer's Daughter, Divided Allegiance, and Oath of Gold), and has two companion novels (Surrender None and Liar's Oath); this is not a problem for me, being a speed-reader, but be forewarned that these are the sort of books that keep you glued to the page.

Tam Lin has a similar quality, though it also benefits from careful perusal and multiple readings. Pamela Dean's writing is deceptively clear and simple, yet numerous tricks and treasures lie below the surface, as well as more quotes than anyone could possibly identify (even the author, though the attempt has been made). I'm not sure why I chose this one for the list rather than her most recent, Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary; perhaps because Tam Lin is slightly more accessible for those new to Pamela Dean. It falls into the category of contemporary or urban fantasy, also known as mythic fiction, set in the modern world yet always on the edge of Faerie. When Janet Carter matriculates at Blackstock College, the world of Faerie is far from her mind; and indeed throughout most of the book there is little to cause her (or the reader) to suspect how close to it she is. The group of odd young men with whom she and her roommates become friends (and further) are only a little odder than any students at a liberal arts school, although the head of the Classics department is decidedly out of the ordinary. Still, it is only small things (the ghost of a female suicide, strange Halloween parties and costumes, the young men's names) that are clearly not part of a normal college experience, until the spectacular denouement in which the ballad of Tam Lin becomes a reality.

I suppose Possession could be called a fantasy, since (to my mother's and my great annoyance) the Victorian poets whose lives it follows are NOT REAL. This is to keep you from searching everywhere for their works. Ahem. Anyway, other than that it's straight literature, even with A.S. Byatt's particular style and lyrical prose. I will warn you that this is a long book as well, only because it's easy to get bogged down among the Victorian poetry and minutiae of the story; once you get to the end, however, you will understand why I've included it in my list. It has indeed been made into a movie, with only moderate success--there's simply too much to be translated to the screen. An unlikely pair of scholars, one interested in the fairly popular poet William Ash, the other in the barely known Christabel LaMotte, find their research paths crossing as they read letters, journals, and stories of the two Victorians, until more than one surprising secret comes to light.

I'm not quite sure how to approach a description of In Pursuit of Love. Putting it on a list of novels may be somewhat misleading, since it is the highly autobiographical account of the Mitford family, a crazy group of utterly dissimilar characters. The book is quite amusing to read, but living in the family sounds like hell, with the inept parents (the shouting father who hunted his children when foxes were scarce and the loving but inattentive mother) and seven wild children, who all grew up so different as to make one question their relation to each other. It's generally to be found in one volume with its sequel, Love in a Cold Climate.

Bread Alone I've already summarized pretty well, in the link above, so I'll just add here that I recently reread it and can hardly think of anything better to recommend for a light entertaining read. The descriptions of the bakery are particularly delightful to me, but the whole story is sweet and enjoyable and certainly does not make you want to kill yourself.

It took me a while to finish Their Eyes Were Watching God. This was partly because the book was so unlike what I'd expected; the back cover blurb implied that while the main character had to survive two difficult marriages, the love she finally found was true and meaningful. Boy, if I ever meet a man like Tea Cake, I'll run in the opposite direction. Janie had only known him for a little while before he stole her money and sneaked off to gamble it, and that was only the beginning. Granted, she went with him because she wanted to, and enjoyed the life they lived, but from a practical point of view, he took her from relative prosperity and made her work alongside him in the fields. He beat her up at least, once, too, and she didn't seem to mind! And if they had meaningful conversations, it was all in dialect, which grows tiresome to read. I suppose all in all it was a "classic of black literature" (talk about damning with faint praise), but it was so different from my expectation that I found it slow going. Ah well.

Other than that, I've been gobbling up mysteries and crime novels--grey weather puts me in the mood for books that grab me and don't let go. And now that I'm among the unemployed, all I want to do is read... Oh yes, I too have been laid off by the oh-so-charming family-owned restaurant. While it may very well be for the best, it's still irksome. Fortunately I'm still giddy with freedom and don't much mind yet!

Semicolon listed the Christmas songs she doesn't like, after reading which Odious gave an excellent demonstration of what he does to people who sing "Jingle Bell Rock". Sometimes he overreacts to things.

I have to say, I really can't think of any Christmas songs I hate. After a while I do get tired of them, but probably the only ones that make me roll my eyes at the opening bars are "Jingle Bells" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". Mostly I just love Christmas. I love shopping for gifts for the people I love, putting up decorations (my Christmas lights are currently shedding a cozy glow from our balconies), baking goodies, attending Advent church services, planning gifts for those in need or choosing a charity, making my own gifts, writing Christmas cards, reading all the delightful Christmas stories and watching our long list of movies... it's a good time of year.

Because everybody else is doing it...

Since the Times put out its list of 100 best novels, it seems to be quite the thing to make one's own list. Of course, I did it a long time ago, before it was cool, but since I love lists I thought I might as well try another one. But then I got bogged down in trying to figure out what books should be on a list of best novels; it could, of course, mean one's favorites, but could also be best-known novels, or classic novels, or books with superior style/plot/characters. So I decided to go back to my recent idea and create a list of novels that don't make you want to kill yourself. Happy reading!

?Watership Down, Richard Adams
An Old Fashioned Girl, Louisa May Alcott
Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Jane Austen
The Search for Delicious, Natalie Babbitt
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford
Possession, A.S. Byatt
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins
Tam Lin, Pamela Dean
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Incident At Hawks Hill, Allan W. Eckert
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Reivers, William Faulkner
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle-Stop Café, Fannie Flagg
A Room With A View, E.M. Forster
Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Little White Horse, Elizabeth Goudge
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
Bread Alone, Judith Ryan Hendricks
The Country of the Pointed Firs, Sarah Orne Jewett
A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L’Engle
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
Christy, Catherine Marshall
Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne
In Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford
Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery
The Deed of Paksenarrion, Elizabeth Moon
Master and Commander, Patrick O’Brian
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy
The Heaven Tree Trilogy, Edith Pargeter
Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott
The Good Master, Kate Seredy
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson
Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R Tolkien
Carry On, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Kate Douglas Wiggin
The Hawk and the Dove, Penelope Wilcock
These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder

As a child I read a great deal of Madeleine L'Engle's books, but for some reason the Murry quartet were the only ones that stayed with me. I know I read some of the Austin books, but as our library didn't have them all, my comprehension was spotty; therefore it's been truly delightful to revisit them recently. The one I just read was quite possibly my favorite L'Engle so far (besides Many Waters, of course)--A Ring of Endless Light. Besides being a sucker for dolphin stories, I loved the pure clarity of this book, and the ability Vicky discovers in herself. What a fantastic gift!

Even the little love tangles in this one are interesting, though frankly I wouldn't mind seeing Zachary fall into a hole. I like Vicky's reactions to the three different boys, and how she becomes more herself through her budding relationships with them. I like the way she writes poetry and reads to her grandfather, how she cooks dinner and comforts her little brother. I like the simplicity and the familiar complexity of their family life. I like this book, a lot.

Odious is in the middle of his self-named NaNoReMo, chronicled on his own blog. However, despite his devouring of novels in a day, I've found it fairly easy to keep ahead in lazy leaps. Unfortunately he still has a lot of the good stuff before him, while I'm down to the books I didn't read because I didn't want to.

I decided to give Hemingway another chance, and managed a slog through A Farewell to Arms without too much pain. I just can't stand his style! I'm sure it's effective, ground-breaking, etc, but it makes me want to shake him. It's difficult to get any feel for his characters without more detail and description, and I end up not caring about them at all. The end of the novel is probably supposed to be sad, but to me it was inevitable, predictable, and not tremendously interesting. Also, his idea of a love scene is really appalling.

Before this I read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which kept me hooked with a morbid fascination and sick desire for more dreadful revelations. It's like nothing I've ever read before, and while I'm glad I read it, at the same time I wish I didn't have that information in my head. I started it at work one day when I was covering someone else's hosting shift, and realized after an hour or so that it was not the best place for such a book. I found myself falling into despair, looking around and thinking, "Life is still like this! We all hang on to dead-end, worthless, insecure jobs that grind us down into poverty, and there's no escape! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!" At that point I put the book away.

Now I'm reading Invisible Man. It's kind of boring so far. I wish that, like Odious, I still had Howards End and Mrs. Dalloway to read. Like most great novels, those certainly have their depressing elements (I wonder why that is? I should start a new list--100 Novels That Don't Make You Want To Kill Yourself), but they're so much pleasanter...

Visiting a bookstore when one has no money is a very bad idea, especially when the display of new hardbacks holds such temptations...

Making It Up, Penelope Lively
Wild Ducks Flying Backward: The Short Writings of Tom Robbins
Shaman's Crossing, Robin Hobb
13 Steps Down, Ruth Rendell
The Trouble With Poetry, Billy Collins
Rereadings: Seventeen Authors Revisit Books They Love, Anne Fadiman, ed.
Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
Sleep, Pale Sister, Joanne Harris

Strangely, making a list of them helped ease the temptation, and we left after several hours having only spent $5 on chai lattes. Yay virtue!

Speaking of lists, Odious and I discovered the other day that I am better-read than he, which horrified him and left me feeling pleasantly smug. At the library we found lists of 100 Top Novels, 100 Best Classics, etc, and went through them checking off the ones we'd each read. Even though I'd suspected that in this particular genre I'd read more, we were both surprised to find out the significant gap by which I left him in the dust. Of course, it helps that I've read nearly everything by Dickens, Hardy, and Forster! He is now determined to catch up, but since it inspired me to read several of the books I've been meaning to, we'll see how the competition goes...

I recently made a deal with a friend that I would read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles if she would read the Lord of the Rings (since we had respectively managed to miss these fine books in our childhoods). I think she got the better end of the deal.

I liked the Prydain books, really. But they reminded me too much of a video game (Odious says I may be somewhat biased in my view of video games because of the ones he plays--yes, yes, it's true, he plays video games A LOT) in the linear quality of the quests and the lack of causality in the world itself. Prydain is too small a world for me to be really interested in it, though I suspect as a child this would not have bothered me so much. Also, the coming-of-age ploy is a touchy one--if you don't get it quite right it really doesn't work at all. I couldn't stand Taran--he was just a paper doll. There wasn't anything real about him, and his speech was so different from anyone else's that the dialogues were hard to follow. I did enjoy Princess Eilonwy to a certain extent, though if she were a real person I'd throw things at her. Gwydion was a paper doll too, so really I have to say the best character was Gurgi, with Fflewddur Fflam a close second. It's unfortunate that so often the main character has to be the least interesting (this is particularly true, I think, in TV shows) and the sidekicks are the ones everybody likes. Odious and I talked about this once, but I can't remember what our conclusion was.

That said, they're good books. I should have read them as a child (the reason for missing them is unclear, since our public library owned them--I think I was under the impression that my mother didn't approve of them), but they were still enjoyable in this first meeting. And the Welsh mythology is, of course, great fun.

I didn't intend to read all of Michael Cunningham's new book all in one go, but with one cat curled up next to me and the other on my stomach, I wasn't going anywhere. Specimen Days was interesting, and I enjoyed it, but I'm not totally sure what it was about. Walt Whitman's poetry was a major theme, but I just don't really know what happened; it didn't click for me immediately the way The Hours did. The set-up of the book is similar, with three loosely connected novellas, but none of the characters really captured me or evoked a sense of understanding. I've only dipped into his other two books and have little interest in them, and I'm really hoping that The Hours doesn't turn out to be his one big hit. It's so frustrating when that happens with authors--Tracy Chevalier is the same way. Oh well, I might reread Specimen Days more carefully and see if I can get more out of it.