Summer Reading List

As some of you know, I'm currently in the midst of my M.A.T. degree (Master of Arts in Teaching) from Mount St. Mary's University. Sometimes I love the work and come home with a heart full of take-on-the-world, movie-quality-teacher inspiration. Other times, the work is more like....wrestling a wet cat that's determined to claw its way out of your control.

In the midst of all this chaos, I sometimes lose track of my reading. But this summer. This summer, I dove into my reading pile and have been swimming around ever since, rejecting any attempts at rescue.

Here's a glimpse at the worlds I've been to thus far:

The Conquered List: 
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather... Somehow, I managed to go through four years of an English degree and not read a single page of Willa Cather. (If any of my former professors are reading this and thinking "But wait, I assigned that!"....I'm sorry.) Needless to say, I'm glad I rectified this lack in my life.
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Bejamin Alire Saenz.... a spin on the coming-of-age novel, achingly blunt and  truthful. One of those books that every other sentence makes you catch your breath.
Midwinerblood by Marcus Sedgwick....Okay, okay, I know it won a Printz Award, but, while the labyrinthine structure was definitely original, I felt the writing itself to be a little forced. It felt like a book that was trying desperately to be earth-shattering Literature-with-a-capital-L. All that aside...I would use it in class.
The Fault in our Stars by John Green... Holy smokes. I cried and blubbered things like "it's just so beautiful." That's all.
The Nazi Hunters by Neil Bascomb... I have two things to say: 1) The narrator and tone are quite biased, borderline demonizing the men of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. Admitttedly, if any government deserved to be demonized, the Third Reich would be it. However, it's a lot scarier to realize that these were rational, human men and women who voted and made their own decisions. 2) This is a pretty darn good nail-biter. I'm fairly certain I did a fist pump near the end.
City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare....Haters gonna hate, but this is cheap and good entertainment.
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter...Any book that takes me to Italy and 1950-60s Hollywood is a good book in my book. I just said the word book alot.

The Waiting List:
Bomb by Steve Sheinkin
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
Wuthering Heights by Emiliy Bronte (a re-read, but its been a while)
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Hurricane Sisters by Dorothea Benton Frank (my go-to beach-read author)
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

I'm always in need of some more recommendations. Come one, come all with your suggestions!.

A Rebel Read

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Tony Horowitz's Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War explores the continuing legacy of the Civil War in the American South. A sometimes touching, sometimes scary, sometimes downright hilarious travelogue, the book traces the path of the war, beginning in South Carolina and marching up to Maryland and Pennsylvania. Horowitz attempts to decipher not only what the Confederate legacy means to the South but also what "Southerness" means. Why does "the South" insist upon flying rebel flags and hoisting monuments to dead generals? Can a line be drawn between racism and honoring the dead? Is "states rights" just a way to disguise the war motivation of slavery? Or, was the real conflict industry and imperialism versus agrarianism?

Some interesting tidbits from the book:

• The black-and-white Civil War photographs I'd studied as a child had blurred together, forming a Rorschach blot in which Americans now saw all sorts of unresolved strife: over race, sovereignty, the sanctity of historic landscapes, and who should interpret the past.
• I recognized the appeal of dwelling on the South's past rather than its present. Stepping from my room into the motel parking lot, I gazed out at a low-slung horseshoe of ferroconcrete called Towne Mall, a metal-and-cement forest of humming electricity pylons, a Kmart, a garish yellow Waffle House, a pink-striped Dunkin' Donuts, plus Taco Bell, Bojangles, Burger King, the Golden Arches of McDonald's, and the equally gaudy signs for Exxon, BP, and Shell hoisted like battle flags above a melee of competing brands. I wondered sleepily what Confederate General Albert Johnston would make of the view from the Econo Lodge. 
• I began to hear echoes of defeated peoples I'd encountered overseas: Kurds, Armenians, Palestinians, Catholics in Northern Ireland. Like them, Southerners had kept fighting their war by other means. 
• Perhaps the North and South went to war because they represented two distinct and irreconcilable cultures, right down to their bloodlines. While most Southerners descended from fierce, freedom-loving Celts in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Northerners--New England in particular--came from mercantile and expansionist English stock. This ethnography could even explain how the War was fought. Like their brace and heedless forebears, Southerners hurled themselves in frontal assaults on the enemy. The North, meanwhile, deployed its industrial might and numerical superiority to grind down the South with Cromwellian efficiency. Viewed through this prism, the "War of Northern Aggression" was not just about slavery. Rather, it was a culture war in which Yankees imposed their imperialist and capitalistic will on the agrarian South, just as the English had done to the Irish and Scots--and as America did to the Indians and the Mexicans in the name of Manifest Destiny. The North's triumph condemned the national to a centralized, industrial society and all the ills that come with it. 
• Huff pulled a book from his shelf and read me a poem called "The Conquered Banner," composed by a Confederate chaplain after the Civil War. "Furl that Banner, for tis weary;/ Round its staff its drooping dreary;/ Furl it, fold it, it is best;/ For there's not a man to wave it,/And there's not a sword to save it,/And there's not one left to lave it/ In the blood which heroes gave it;/ And its foes now scorn and brave it;/ Furl it, hide it--let it rest." Huff closed the book. "It's too bad nobody reads that poem anymore," he said. 

I'm only about half-way through, but I haven't been this engrossed in a book in a long time. I'll post again, with more thoughts and quotes, I'm sure!

What are your thoughts on the Civil War and the "South"?

Review: Phillipa Gregory's Wideacre Trilogy

source

There's something so final and sad about finishing a book series. I just put down the last novel in Phillipa Gregory's Wideacre trilogy. It consists of three books (surprise, surprise since its a trilogy of all things): Wideacre, The Favored Child, and Meridon. Each one had the requisite steamy portrait of a buxom, beautiful  young woman. I almost had as much fun mimicking their dramatic poses as I did actually reading the novels.

In short: these books trace 3 generations of the Lacey family, a group of squires living in Sussex, England. Wideacre is the name of their family estate. The novels deal specifically with the female members of the families and what they go through to maintain their identity and land ownership in 18th century, patriarchal England.

At times, I had to grit my teeth to get through the novel--perhaps I just have developed some ill-conceived, English-major snobbery for literature quality. But, occasionally, the scenarios and dialogue in the novels fell a little on the melodramatic side. A description that all put begged an orchestra's dun dun DUN. Or a snippet of dialogue that only needed a gasp and a swoon. Yet be that as it may... I found I couldn't put these novels down.

Why? Why did the English-major snob plow straight through these books? Because the main characters are fantastic. Who doesn't love a heroine who is also a villain every now and then? And a villain because she struggles with her own human nature and against society--- a struggle of power, greed, desire, and wit.

These novels really weren't about thwarted romance, passion, or money (although there was a good bit of all of these flashing about). Really, these novels are about female identity. How the protagonists are seen, how they wish to be seen, and most importantly how they see themselves. They battle against their social status, against societal convention, and even against themselves to figure out their own identity and place in the world. Gregory challenges the idea of what it meant  to be a successful woman in the 18th century--is it the kind housewife, the virgin, the landlord, the heiress who its successful? And really... thinking about it now... I feel like these demands on identity are still in place.

What woman doesn't feel that she is sacrificing her home when she decides to pursue a challenging degree or successful career? How often do people use disparaging terminology for housewives? "Oh she just stays at home." "She's just a stay-at-home-mom." (As if that life were easy and just one thing or another.) And for those women who can juggle both home and work--like my own mom or my sister--how often do they make sacrifices, not only in one plane or another but also sacrifices to themselves, to maintain that identity?  How often is female sexuality challenged--we're expected to remain virgins, we're humiliated for being virgins, we're labeled as "whores" for choosing to not remain virgins. How often are people judged by others? And how often do we judge ourselves because of the judgment of others?

I feel like Gregory, a female historian, does a great job of crafting a world from the past she has so lengthily studied. Although the prose can get a wee bit repetitive and dense sometimes, the novel's character development really is laudable and believable. And the core themes and struggles are applicable even today. I think these novels would resonate with many different readers--and they fall into the category of a gripping winter read. A little bit of love, a good bit of Gothic chill, and a greatly portion of the sweeping English countryside--something worthy of snuggling up with a blanket and a cup of tea. Trust me--whether from your own winter chill or from the novel--you'll be glad for the warmth now and then.

My personal rating on the Abi-Book-Scale:
7.5 (maaaybe 8)  out of 10

Brewed Dark & Bitter

Day 10: I'm thankful for this chilly November morning that dawned with a cup of dark coffee and a new read. A new read that's surprisingly darker than anticipated. Perhaps I should start paying more attention to the book jacket descriptions rather than simply reading the first few pages. I'm not usually into the seduction, murder, and betrayal gambit but it seems I have committed to 500+ pages of just that. Huzzah. Bitter death and destruction shall ride forth in petticoats! (Too much? Pretend I didn't say it.)

Mark's final kickball playoffs are today! They one their first round and so qualified for the division championship! If they win the first game today, they go on to (win?!) the title. Wish them luck!

Happy Saturday!

Morning Read: Atonement

In 2007, I saw and liked the movie. But somehow, I never got around to reading the book. Strangely enough, even as I was calmly (mostly) reading Milton, Spenser, Faulkner, Joyce, Woolf, and Co. for my undergrad... Ian McEwan's work always seemed to leer at me from the shelves with this subtle challenge. And, understand, my bias was solely based off the film adaptation of Atonement; I had never ever ever read any of his books, and yet I had this preconceived notion of sadness, depression...a general, weighty pith of gloom and deep thought.

Don't get me wrong.
Atonement is bone-wrenchingly sad. It makes your soul ache. But McEwan's prose?
Such. A. Pleasure. To my surprise, I couldn't put the book down. I carried it around in my purse to steal five minutes here and there in McEwan's finely crafted world.

I hate to use a book-review-cliche but, in my opinion, his prose really does flow. He just effortlessly moves you through a character's thoughts. Before you realize it, you've glided through four or five pages of interior monologue as thirteen-year-old Briony muses on life and consciousness and the place of herself/her Self in all this muck. And you never get bored. Or at least I didn't. You just glide effortlessly through the sentences and descriptions and details, never missing a beat.

Set in pre-World War II England, the book is about 13 year old Briony who accidentally witnesses her sister's fledgling romance with their charlady's son. Briony is just old enough to have vague notions of adult life and emotions; just old enough to realize that there is a whole world opening up before her; just old enough to feel too young to understand it.  She is just old enough to be fascinated by it and  just young enough to be scared by it. Of course, curious and confused little sister gets in the way and her actions and perceptions have ramifications that reverberate through the next fifty years.

Basically, that's the book's general plot.
But Atonement is also about story: about the disconnect between fiction, perception, and reality, about the reality we create by our perceptions, about the space between the inner space and the outer physicality.... It really pulls you through some deep arguments while all along making you fret and worry and bit your lip over the trials of these young lovers.

In short, I loved the book. It was really enjoyable (despite the sadness). And I highly recommend it, if you're looking for a thought-provoking yet approachable read.

And that's that.

---> P.S. Four days til my wedding, folks!!

I'm getting butterflies! <---