#16 and #17

After the witty banter of Pratchett and the beautiful descriptions of LeGuin, the next two books seemed a bit of a let down. 

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan was a cute tale of a delinquent kid coming to live with an offbeat family of artists to be home schooled after being kicked out of every school in the region. It was a good premise for a young reader and an entertaining read but certainly not a classic. I grew up on Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Mallory Towers), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Edith Nesbitt (The Railway Children), Astrid Lingred (Pippi Longstocking), Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs),  and other writers that have developed their central characters much better. Take Edmund from Narnia or a myriad of naughty schoolchildren in Enid Blyton's books: the trajectory of unruly, selfish, self-centred troublesome kids to thoughtful and kind and "jolly" (jolly seeming to be a common British value) is represented well and you can see the characters develop and grow. I found Jake Semple a very unrealistic "bad boy" with no real explanation of how is moral character developed except that his bad deeds were ignored so he stopped doing them. I did however, like the character of E.D: the only non-artistic one of the family who often feels left out, misunderstood, and in the midst of chaos created by free thinking family of singers, dancers, hippies, painters, and actors, just longs for order and neatness which she accomplishes through creating lists for herself. It's kind of like being in the middle of a hipster-obsessed city. 

If Surviving the Applewhites had some redeeming factors, The Alto Wore Tweed has none. It's a half Agatha Christie mystery and half Mitford series, with the worst of both. The characters managed to be insipid and exaggerated and undeveloped all at the same time. The flawed hero is egotistical, misogynist and a bit of a womaniser; and the plot was boring. A choir director/detective who tries to write a novel while having a nice, peaceful small town life sounds like a book that would be right up my alley. It was not. The only thing I liked was a politically correct directive from the bishop that dictated that  "all  whole and half notes will from now on be referred to as "pigmentally impoverished," that 50% of all compositions will be made up of "notes of color," and no reference will be made to the stereotype that notes of color move faster and generally jump higher."

The other day on a walk, we stumbled across this delightful, free, community library! I just love the idea!!! 

#13

Home by Bill Bryson

A book about everyday things, Home is a detailed look into the history of items we encounter on a daily basis. Bill Bryson takes a walk through his parsonage in the countryside of England and delves into the past room by room. It is a series of fascinating facts about life in the past, life usually riddled by diseases and discomfort. Home isn't my favourite of Bryson's books. I found the facts unorganized and very loosely held together. He travelled back and forth through time, often referencing historical figures or events he'd mentioned a few chapters and 349 facts ago, rendering it impossible to keep track of the timeline. However, Bryson's strength has always been the intriguing, laughable, shocking or obscure facts that he has dug up and it was hard to not stop and interrupt Scott every other minute to share a new factoid such as:

- the average marriage in the 1700s lasted 10 years, not because of divorce, but because death was so common weather through disease, accident or childbirth.
- until the 1850s, condiment stands for the table where designed for oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and a shaker whose use has completely faded into history. It's a mysterious missing condiment!
- every species in the animal kingdom can produce in their bodies Vitamin C except for humans and pigs.
- an ounce of corn flakes has more salt than an ounce of salted peanuts
- the architect who designed the interior skeleton of the Statue of Liberty is Alexandre Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame.
- for a 150 years, men would shave their heads of comfortable hair to put on stuffy, scratchy, itchy wigs.
- Lobsters, now a luxury food, used to be so prolific that they were fed to prisoners and orphans.

For many more facts to pull out at dinner parties for years to come, read the book :)

#8 and 9#, #11, #12, #14 and #15

I know haven't posted since April but to be fair, in that time, I've had my 30th birthday, been part of  a wedding (and attended events for three different weddings), bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica, and read 7 books, gone through a few medical crises, and almost gotten laid off to name a few things keeping me busy.

Six of those seven books were The Earthsea Chronicles: a stunningly beautiful series written by Ursula K. Le Guin. Simple and complex, surprising and deeply familiar, far ahead of its time in terms of gender roles and politics, this series blew my mind. I cried more than once and that is the highest praise I can give a book.

My favorite podcast, Stuff Mom Never Told You, (check it out if you are wanting to know anything about the wide, fascinating world of womenhood) did an episode on science fiction and the impact on social justice. I'd never made this connection before. I, and most people I know who love science fiction, read it primarily for the entertainment factor. It's fascinating to become immersed in an entirely new world, either dystopian and dark or fantastical and magical. However, science fiction and fantasy, usually stories about worlds completely different from Earth, can be powerful commentaries on social justice, contain passionate voices for change and present an idea of what a world COULD look like if we move towards a more egalitarian future or what it MIGHT look like if we continue to disregard the needs of our planet and the most marginalized on this planet.

When I read Brave New World in college, it rocked my world. The fact that a book written in 1931 could so accurately pinpoint the dangers of a materialistic world, just starting to really ramp up in Huxley's day, was chilling. 1984 was written in 1949: a few years before the cold war and the widespread fear of communism truly swept the western world. Both of these authors were masters and seeing where current trends could lead and provided important warnings.

Likewise, Ursula K. Le Guin has the power to compose stories that are stunning, mystical, heartbreaking, inspiring and thought-provoking all at once. The Dispossessed, which I read last year, was about twin planets: one living our anarchist ideals, abolishing all forms of government in a society set on brotherhood and cooperation. The other planet was given over to reckless materialism and classism. As one man sets on a journey from one planet to the other and finding himself lost in both, the reader is drawn into the problems and issues of both ideals. In her ground-breaking book, The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin explores a genderless world and the affect on this in society, on war and on domestic roles. The fact that this was written in the 60s, in a time of extreme societal upheaval, when the roles of race and class and gender were being strongly challenged, makes the discussion all the more potent.

The Earthsea Chronicles being written originally for young adult readers doesn't detract from the power of her message. Written between 1968 and 2001, the characters transition and grow along with their author and this gives the series depth and beauty. Most books are fairly simple with one or two main protagonists but their subject line is intricate, philosophical and written with beautiful turns of phrases and vivid imagery. Unexpected and powerful, showing the beauty and tenderness in men and the strength and power in women; flipping the dominant races and make white people the savage barbarians, this series makes me want to be a traveller, a mother and a dragon all in one!