Specimen Days

I've had more chance to read these past weeks than I thought I would. I asked H if I should be worried that I was not concerned about having everything packed and cleaned and all the details ticked off the list. He assured me that everything is going along so smoothly that he is, in fact, getting bored.

Bags are 70% packed. Boxes and bags are mostly full waiting for last-minute items to toss in. We still need to finish cleaning, but some things cannot be cleaned until the last day or two.

So, we are reading. After the last Michael Cunningham book I read in July, I checked out his newest, The Snow Queen, but I could not finish it. It was short, but it felt to me as though he was more interested in writing beautiful prose than actually saying anything. Nevertheless, I thought I would give a previous book a go. 

I actually enjoyed Specimen Days. It's like Cunningham's The Hours in that it revolves around another classic piece of literature, this one Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. The novel consists of three linked stories: one past, one present, one future. Characters continuously quote portions of Whitman's epic poetry collection. The first is a ghost story, the second a thriller, the third science fiction. A common theme is man vs. the machine and the state of humanity.

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry

If you love books and bookstores, you may just love this little book. I read it in two days. I'm not saying that it is fabulous literary fiction, but it has heart, some lovable characters (including the grumpy ones), and it took me in. 

The policeman in the story "believes that cops go one of two ways as they get older. They either get more judgmental or less so. Lambaise is not so rigid as when he was a young police officer. He has found that people do all sorts of things, and they usually have their reasons."

I hope that I am the kind of person who becomes less judgmental as I get older....

Moonwalking with Einstein

Upon the hearty recommendation of my dear husband, I blew through this book in a few days. The subtitle is hard to read here. It is: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. The parts on how "mental athletes" memorize large amounts of information held my attention, while Foer's more personal story of how he prepared for the US Memory Championship felt a little over-indulgent. Therefore those parts were a little easier to skim.

This section on page 203 hammered home an interesting way of thinking about memorization. "In our gross misunderstanding of the function of memory, we thought that memory was operated primarily by rote. In other words, you rammed it in until your head was stuffed with facts. What was not realized is that memory is primarily an imaginative process. In fact, learning, memory, and creativity are the same fundamental process directed with different focus," says Buzan. "The art and science of memory is about developing the capacity to quickly create images that link disparate images and to create something new and hurl it into the future so it becomes a poem, or a building, or a dance, or a novel. Creativity is, in a sense, future memory."

The question I came away with for myself is, "how can I get my music students to memorize the note names?" I have some ideas that I am going to work on....

The Circle

Someone at Fiddle Camp, I don't remember who, recommended Dave Eggers' The Circle to me. Maybe it was because the main character went to Carleton. This thick book is a quick read (especially since the reader can skim pages here and there), and it is certainly a plot-driven novel. After I finished it, I read the NY Times review and have to say that I agree with Ullman on the flaws of the book. 

"This potential dystopia should sound familiar. Books and tweets and blogs are already debating the issues Eggers raises: the tyranny of transparency, personhood defined as perpetual presence in social networks, our strange drive to display ourselves, the voracious information appetites of Google and Facebook, our lives under the constant surveillance of our own government.

“The Circle” adds little of substance to the debate. Eggers reframes the discussion as a fable, a tale meant to be instructive. His instructors include a Gang of 40, a Transparent Man, a shadowy figure who may be a hero or a villain, a Wise Man with a secret chamber and a smiling legion of true-believing company employees. The novel has the flavor of a comic book: light, entertaining, undemanding."

So, yes, with all its flaws, it was a fun (and scary) read, although the Carleton connection did not stand up very well for me.

A Home at the End of the World

No summer trip is complete without a trip to a bookstore. I had brought along Tell the Wolves I'm Home, but finished it the first day in Iowa, so I just HAD to find another book. I heard that there was a Half-Price Books nearby, and I had no problem talking G and H into going with me. I picked up Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World based on having enjoyed The Hours. 

I think Cunningham writes smartly. I didn't particularly like any of the characters - none of them seemed to develop very much, but they way the author portrays them, I felt some empathy for them. The ending was not very satisfactory for me, but I was compelled to keep reading. I will try other works by this guy.

I loved this section of classic Little Golden Books at Half Price Books. Not meant for children.

Tell The Wolves I'm Home

Books make excellent gifts, in my opinion. I gave this book to my friend for her birthday. I took a gamble because I had not read it, but I really liked the title and the plot description.

After my friend finished reading it, she gave it to me, saying, "I liked it." Now that I have read it, I have to concur. It is the first novel I've read this year that I enjoyed. (It gets extra kudos for being a debut novel that gets a star on my list.) My favorite part is the 14-year-old narrator's voice.

Now the book goes back to my friend so she can pass it along to her mom. This is the advantage of real books over e-books.

Choosing a Book Club Book

We have chosen July for hosting book club, the last one for us for the year before we head off to Zurich. I think that cleaning the house and getting ready for company is easier than choosing the book to discuss. I think the host should always pre-read the book before choosing it, otherwise you run the risk of a real dud.

Thinking about perhaps a Swiss theme, I thought I would peruse books about Switzerland or with a Swiss author. Know of any off the top of your head? No? Me, neither, but I discovered Max Frisch, a Zurich author. His most famous book is I'm Not Stiller. The pages number under 400, but the font is small and the lines close together, so it took awhile to read. Although I thought that the book would create a great discussion, I don't really want people to have to slog through the novel, so I returned it to the library upon completion. 

Then I tried Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. It read much, much faster, but I don't think it would lend itself to very good discussion.

I have to make up my mind in the next few weeks. During that time I have to read the book we're discussing in June. I may just have to go through my past book lists to find something suitable.

But Enough About You

This book was the outer Russian Nesting Doll of my May book reading. Huh? I started Christopher Buckley's essay collection in early May, then interrupted it to read the book club book which I interrupted to read the Swiss Life book. Back to the book club book, and finally, back to finishing But Enough About You. I'm sure you don't care how I read my books, but usually it's one at a time, so that was enough for me to at least mention it.

So, this book has some very interesting essays (a few that pop to mind are some of his travel essays - to Machu Picchu and France, his introduction to Moby Dick and reflections on Catch-22), a few that I just skipped after the first paragraph (none pop to mind here), and some in-between that I enjoyed reading at the time, but don't specifically remember now. 

I'm still on the lookout for a good novel.

Deconstruction?

I had interrupted the reading of this book club book, I Love Dick by Chris Kraus, to read the Swiss Life book. Then I went back to the assigned reading. 

I know we will have plenty to discuss about this book, which is not so much a novel as it is "something between cultural criticism and fiction." Reading the afterword was helpful to me in trying to figure out exactly what was happening in the book. Or, not really what was happening, but what the author was trying to say. Which I still don't understand. Exactly.

It reminded me of when I was in grad school in music history, and our profs thought we should try to apply the literary theory of deconstruction to the writing about music. I know we read some Derrida, and I know that I had no clue what the theorists were talking about, how it mattered to anything, especially how it mattered to music and music criticism. 

Swiss Life

I follow a page on Facebook called NewInZurich. Yesterday the page touted a newly-published book called Swiss Life: 30 Things I Wish I'd Known by Chantal Panozzo. She moved to Switzerland in 2006 to follow her husband's job. That made her a "trailing spouse."  I will be a trailing spouse in Switzerland in a few months, and I know there are things I will have wished that I had known. 

I bought the Kindle version of the book yesterday (ain't instant gratification great?) and finished reading it today. If you go to the Amazon page and click the "look inside" link, you can read quite a bit of the book to get a feel for what's in store for us this coming year.

I found myself thinking, "That won't really apply to me," and "Hoo boy, I will need to be prepared for THAT!" The main differences between Chantal and me are that we will only be there for a year, I won't be looking for work, and I won't be having any babies. However, I will still need to learn how to run the shared washing machines, push and shove in line, navigate a German that will sound very strange to me, and figure out how to have a conversation that contains no small talk. 

Now if we could find a renter for our house....

Orfeo

Not my favorite book.

This book is supposed to be derived from the Orpheus myth. I didn't see it, unless it's as simple as Orpheus being a musician, as the main character of this one is. Reviewers have remarked that Powers writes from his head, but not his heart, and I would have to agree with that in this novel.

Mostly I had a hard time with descriptions of music since I think that music is its own language with different truths. Here is just one clunky example from the novel trying to describe music. "The piece was simplicity itself: a triplet-driven, Phrygian figure in the high voices, while beneath, arpeggios moved in contrary motion, in wide slow waves. Each new entry took the evolving figure into higher registers. The blend strained toward something archaic, a folk tune an ethnographer might find in a remote mountain village of a failing monarchy, to bring back to his studio in the decadent capital and flesh out with volunteer harmonies."

I have no idea what that means. I mean, I understand what triplets, Phrygian, waves, etc. mean, but it doesn't tell me about the music. Especially since the paragraph starts out saying that the music was simplicity itself. The description doesn't sound like the music is simple.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that my biologist daughter would not approve of the science writing, either.

Rob Delaney

You probably didn't see Rob Delaney's book Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. on the bestseller list. I didn't. I did see it mentioned in the Sunday NY Times in the section where they interview people about what they read. It was recommended as a funny book. I think maybe I laughed once.

What I want to know is this. Actually, I probably don't want to know this, because I don't really care. That is, why do so many male writers revert to  scatological content. I feel as though they are forcing me to look into the locker of a teenaged boy in order to find a laugh. All I find is an odor I'd prefer to forget. It also seems to me that women writers don't feel the need to talk about bowel movements nearly as much as men do.

Mindsight

My Alexander Technique teacher suggested that I read this book, Mindsight, by Daniel Siegel. For some reason I thought it would be about how to meditate. In some ways, it has something to do with mindfulness, but it's not so much a how-to manual as it is how understanding how our brains are wired and how to use mindful techniques, called mindsight by Siegel, to not only enrich our lives, but our relationships.

I have started becoming very interested in this type of thing since I notice that many of my students come into the music room not at all ready to listen, and not at all ready to learn. I have started trying to get their minds to relax for a few minutes at the beginning of class, and, if nothing else, it gives the room a sense of calm, at least for a few moments. I feel as though I can explain what we are about to do (because I try to make my classes about doing rather than just listening to me drone on) without trying to compete for their minds' attention. Since we can only do this as a group once a week, and I haven't done it long, I cannot comment on any noticeable changes in my students, except for at the start of class.

I have now put a few books on my reading list about mindfulness in schools. Stay tuned.

Transatlantic

So far I'm on track to read four books each month this year. Today I finished the book club selection for March, even though we won't be able to make the meeting. I thought that I would write a few paragraphs to send along to the book club hosts to share in our absence.

I have not yet written those paragraphs, because I am still thinking about the book - Transatlantic by Colum McCann. When I read Amazon reviews, I was little concerned that I wouldn't be able to follow the plot, but even with the various characters throughout 140-some years, it wasn't too difficult to keep stories straight. The novel's construction weaves the lives of unknown (and fictional) women throughout various non-fiction events that connect America and Ireland. In that way, it kept my interest.

Although some of the language is beautiful, it also calls attention to itself, and I found the paragraphs of details bogged me down. Because there are many characters, the development of said characters had to be minimized, if there was development at all.

My questions I would ask book club would be - what is the meaning of all that soggy ground? That is a detail that came back in various places. Also, why didn't anyone ever open that letter until the end? (This is not really a spoiler, I don't think.)

Chronicles: Volume One

Picked this book up at a rummage sale and finally finished it. That's how it goes with books you own. They get pushed back in favor of the books that have a due date.

You wouldn't expect a typical memoir from Bob Dylan, and you don't get one. Not one in chronological order. Not one with clear dates or even names (what was his wife's name, I wonder?). Although there is plenty of name-dropping. The beginning seemed to me to be a slog-fest of "then I played here, and I talked to these people, and I went there," etc. That's probably the real reason it took so long to finish.

Once I picked it back up, I got interested in the middle where Dylan actually talks about how some of his songs came into existence. As you might think, no song comes about in the same way. Sometimes the songs you don't think much about are the ones that touch a chord with your audience.

One thing that I particularly admire about Dylan are his lyrics. I seem to be able to write prose, maybe a little poetry, but I feel completely stymied when it comes to lyrics. However, my favorite thing that I ever composed had lyrics which I had to borrow from poets. All of Dylan's songs seem to come from lyrics first, which makes great sense to me.

Best American Short Stories 2006

It's easy to let a book of short stories sit on the bedside table. (My opinion on this matter here.) You finish one, and then maybe forget about the book since there are no cliffhangers. Then, I got it into my head that I want to read one book a week, and the current read would not be finished in time to turn the calendar over. I thought I should finish this one and then be able to hand it over to my daughter who is a short story fan. I'm glad I finished it since two of the final stories were favorites of mine. They were "A New Gravestone for an Old Grave," by David Bezmozgis and "The Casual Car Pool," by Katherine Bell. 

If you missed my post about the book I finished in the first week of February, it's because I wrote about it on my music blog here.

The Odds

I am keeping up very well with my New Year's Resolution to not take any more food photos, but maybe I should have also resolved to get back to my book reading since I have managed to finish four books in January.

Maybe it's a little cheating that this recent book is not only less than 200 pages, it is also an easy and fun read. I don't think I've read anything else by Stewart O'Nan, but perhaps he will appear on my radar now.

This charming book about a middle-aged couple whose marriage and financial health is crumbling, take a last-ditch trip to Niagara Falls with what money they have left to see if they can win big at the roulette tables and perhaps save their marriage. I particularly enjoy the chapter headings, each of which tells the odds of something, say, the odds of landing on black at the roulette table or the odds of a marriage proposal on Valentine's Day, which hints at what might happen in the chapter.

Andrew's Brain

Just finished the newest E. L. Doctorow book. My second of his, the first being Homer and Langley (which I really enjoyed and apparently did not blog about). I am getting better at figuring out when we have an unreliable narrator, and this one certainly fits that description. I haven't decided whether or not I like this book, but I do know that it would garner a good book club discussion, especially with two strange twists at the end. It may be one of those books that I will not remember at the end of the year.

Strange Stones

These are some of the images you get when you google Strange Stones and click on "Images". 

I am more interested in the book of that title by Peter Hessler (tucked in between photos of interesting stones). River Town, Hessler's first book still sticks in my mind as a great read, about his years in the Peace Corps, teaching English literature in a teacher's college.

This book, a collection of essays about his continued time in China with some pieces on America, has been an equally interesting read. I think my favorite one is called "Walking the Wall" about The Great Wall of China, which, as I found out, is not one wall, not visible from space, and still continues to engage my imagination (what with my fascination with history and architectural ruins).

Take One Candle Light a Room

Our book club will be discussing Susan Straight's Take One Candle Light a Room this month. It was selected as this year's Claremont On the Same Page read. We are a little slow on the uptake since the events for the selection were in the fall.

Anyway, this book has been lauded by a variety of reviewers who, I think, have a great deal more patience than I do when it comes to this style of writing. I found the choppy style (not quite stream of consciousness, but close in some places), the plethora of characters and the amount of details which do not add either to the plot nor the tone of the story too confusing.

I think the story itself bears telling, once I sort of figured out what it was, but I felt as though I waded through so much extraneous stuff. For example, there was attention paid to the fact that the narrator was bitten by fire ants, and how that stung her legs like crazy, and then they applied some home remedies to her bites which helped some but not a lot. I have no idea how that illuminated either the plot nor the characters.

This is the second book by Straight that I have read, but I don't think I'll choose another one unless it's for a book club.