David and Demon

Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel, was a 2-for-1 because I started reading it by reading David Copperfield, the book that inspired it. Such is the legacy of being an English major. I like to know the history behind things, where they fit into the literary patterns of the past, what to expect from them in terms of correspondences and reworkings. For me, it adds to the fun.

I also don't mind knowing the ending before I reach it -- unless maybe it's a surprise ending with a big twist at the finish. Then, well, maybe. Many a time I've tried to explain that that the classic fade of "You'll have to read it yourself to find out what happens . . . " means nothing to me. Tell me everything, up front, so I know where I am! 

Anyway, I'm late to the party on David Copperfield and was happy to catch up. Dickens is a pleasure, despite the Victorian flourishes and his tendency to use many words when only a few will do. He's also occasionally a little sweet for my taste. (Gasp! Have I become a modernist?) However, a classic is a classic and I added it to my Done Read list in 2024.

Kingsolver's adaptation of the plot points and characters from Dickens is exceptionally well-done. I learned a lot about the dire circumstances of Appalachian life, including abusive homes, foster homes, oxycontin addiction, meth labs, extreme poverty, exploitation, and complicated family circumstances. It's Victorian London all over again, teeming with troubles and amazing characters trying to make ends meet with varying degrees of success. Most of the Dickens sweetness has been sanded off by the grit of modern life.

Demon Copperhead, nicknamed for his fiery red hair, endures all of the trials the world can throw at him, and somehow still manages to maintain a measure of goodness, character, and grace. Like David Copperfield, he is the hero you want to root for, full of sass and vulnerability, sometimes lost, sometimes on track, always following his moral compass but zigzagging along the way.

Excerpt:

She saw me. Raised up her hand trowel like she was fixing to throw it. "Go away!"

I was frozen.

"I said get. No boys here!" She started chopping the air with her weapon.

If I opened the gate and took a step towards her, which I did, there was nothing brave about it. Just no choice. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm your grandson."

She lowered the trowel. She had those wraparound sunglasses that old people wear, and she took them off. Underneath was another pair of thick glasses that made her eyes look like swimming fish. Green like mine, milky, surprised. She stood there looking me over from my busted shoe to the top of my wiry red head. Especially that.

"Oh, lord," she said. And sat down on the ground. 

Note: This book counts toward the Color Coded Reading Challenge and the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.  

Undecided

It seems like May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes can't decide what it wants to be.

It starts off with trouble and escalates quickly. The narrator and his brother, a very successful, volatile narcissist, have a prickly relationship, complicated by the mutual attraction between the narrator and his brother's wife. These ingredients combine explosively in the first 45 pages, and in the remainder of the novel the narrator is left to deal with the fallout. 

With that set-up, this novel could be a sensitive exploration of grief and guilt, but it is anything but that. Homes' fast-paced writing style draws the reader in immediately, but the plotting, which is chock-full of unlikely situations, left me with question after question. 

I don't understand why the narrator continued to try to get through to his brother, when any sensible person would have severed all ties in self-preservation. 

I don't understand why the narrator can sometimes perceive a situation and act decisively, and at other times be so oblivious and helpless. 

Are the sex dates the narrator arranges online supposed to be funny? Ditto the frequent descriptions of various bodily functions. This question could be asked of almost every situation and plot twist: are we supposed to take this stuff seriously? 

Are we really supposed to believe that the narrator is willing to jettison his university career without a backward glance, in the name of family obligations?  

Why do circumstances and events appear, have their moment, and then disappear forever? A stroke with no after-effects? An estate settled without lawyer visits or complications? Also mixed in are international arms dealing, a SWAT-style raid, undiscovered fiction written by Richard M. Nixon, a trip to Africa, a bar mitzvah, a cat that has kittens, a child exploitation incident, and an attempted kidnapping . . . all in the same "one and done" style.         

Is it really that easy to assemble a "chosen family" that includes charming, dementia-addled seniors and sensitive, mostly sensible, cooperative adolescents, as well as one of the narrator's sex partners and her understanding spouse -- all within a year of various family-fracturing events -- and call it good? 

I can't really say.  

Excerpt:

I go back to the car -- the dog and cat are fine, though the stink is enormous. The cat, in a fit of anxiety, has shredded the passenger seat and used it as a bathroom. I drive home breathing only through my mouth.

Note: This book counts for both the Color Coded Reading Challenge and the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

The Color Coded Reading Challenge 2017 - My Sign-Up

Yes, I'm at it again!

I can meet the requirements of The Color Coded Reading Challenge almost entirely from my TBR shelves, so it feels like a win already.

Bev at My Reader's Block does a nice job with her challenges, so it's a no-brainer that I'd sign up for this one again. The rules are straightforward: Read 9 books from the color categories. Any shade of the color counts, whether it's in the title or on the cover. Bev mixes things up by allowing a color of choice (any shade) and a "color implied" category (meaning rainbow, plaid, or another color pattern or word).

I think the charm of this challenge comes from the broad simplicity of the rules. Not to mention that 9 is a nice do-able number!

Here's my list for 2017:

Blue: The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (Booker Prize) substitute: No Self, No Problem - Anam Thubten (review)
Red: We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver (Orange Prize) substitute: The Sun My Heart - Thich Nhat Hanh (review)
Yellow: A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James (Booker Prize) (review)
Green: Rites of Passage - William Golding (Booker Prize) (review)
Brown: The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (Booker Prize) substitute: How to Re-Imagine the World: A Pocket Guide for Practical Visionaries - Anthony Weston (review)
Black: Life and Times of Michael K. - J.M. Coetzee (Booker Prize) (review)
White: The Sellout - Paul Beatty (Booker Prize) (review)
Choice (gray): Holiday - Stanley Middleton (Booker Prize) (review)
Implied: Call of the Rainbow Warrior An Environmental Fable - Twyla Dell (review)

Color Coded Reading Challenge: Wrap Up

In a burst of enthusiasm (a/k/a deadline adrenaline), I reviewed 3 books in a single day and hereby declare this challenge completed! Of course, I also ran out of time to finish reading the last book, but hey, it happens.

Considering I only signed up for this challenge at the half-way point in June, I'm quite pleased that I managed to read and review 8.5 of the 9 books I chose in my sign-up post. The blue, red, yellow, green, brown, black, white, and "color of choice" pale aqua books were no problem. Then came the holidays and I completely bogged down in the "implied color" book. I'll finish it eventually, though.

This is a very fun challenge hosted with aplomb by Bev at My Reader's Block. Bev is the most prolific reader I know and her challenges are well-organized and fun. She's hosting this particular challenge again in 2017 (info here) and I am highly likely to join. Hope to see you over there!

Forthwith, a few superlatives from my colored reading:

The best book by far and a new personal favorite of mine was Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. This kind of writing is what makes the Man Booker winners worth reading; I might never have discovered it otherwise, because it's not the sort of book I'd choose for myself. Now I'm eagerly awaiting the third book in the series. Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna was also a favorite in this group. No surprise there--the Orange winners are also consistently good.  

My least favorite (as of this writing) is a tie between Jeet Thayil's Narcopolis and Michael Syjuco's Ilustrado, which I have yet to finish. I find both of them too disjointed for my taste. I've considered whether there could be a deficiency in my Western background, as well, making it harder for me to understand Indian and Filipino culture, but I don't think that explains it entirely. It's certainly not a quality issue, either. Maybe I'm just not ready for modern fiction.

At any rate, I shall soldier on. I'm hoping to do a lot of reading and reviewing in 2017!

Filling in the Gaps (and Then Some)

When it comes to art and literature, I'm often intrigued by the things that are missing. I first realized this as a concept when I encountered Tom Stoppard's marvelously inventive play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which presents the off-stage action of Hamlet. It's a terribly clever idea and there's something thrilling about a work of art that stands theatrical reality on its head.

The Song of Achilles employs a similar trick with Homer's Iliad. (It appeared on my TBR list as an Orange Prize winner; I chose it as the green book for the Color Coded Reading Challenge, and then I doubled it up for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge as well.) Taking on the plot points that Homer left out is a tall order, but Madeline Miller is a classical scholar and well-qualified to apply herself to the task. She's also a deft writer, embedding historical details easily and convincingly into her narrative. I have no doubt that the fundamentals of this novel are accurate, and Miller humanizes these well-known characters -- Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, and the rest -- in a way that makes us care about what happens to them.

Miller also imaginatively fills in a number of gaps for some of the secondary characters, and this is both a strength and a weakness in the novel. Scholars have long debated Achilles' motivations and behavior, unable to convincingly conclude whether he's a spoiled brat motivated by pride and glory or the first modern man to understand mortality with a depth beyond the Homeric glory code. Here those debates are erased: his thoughts are made clear, his relationship with Patroclus is made explicit, his treatment of Briseis and other female "war prizes" is shown to be compassionate, and his status as a hero is assured.

This is satisfying -- as clear answers can be -- but unfortunately, it also feels rather too modern. Ancient Greek culture is firmly embedded in my mind, and part of the challenge is to admire and understand these people whose value system seems so vastly different from our own. With those differences blunted, the result is less satisfying, perhaps because the task of understanding has been made easier.

The language, too, strikes a disruptively contemporary note at times. Should Patroclus bring honeyed wine as a gift to Achilles' goddess mother, Thetis? No, Achilles says, "She doesn't like it." When Priam comes to plead with Achilles to return Hector's body, he tells Achilles, "I am sorry for your loss." Odysseus, hearing from Pyrrhus that he doesn't sleep, responds with "No wonder you get so much more done than the rest of us." These contemporary expressions disrupt the flow of the story and allow the intrusion of modern times.

After years of flinching at the blood and guts Homer includes in such detail, I'm left strangely unmoved by this kinder, gentler Achilles. The ambiguity may be gone, but so is some of the punch of the original. The story feels most alive to me when Thetis appears. Miller has created what may be the best portrait of a goddess ever written: dangerous, cold, ancient, and unpredictable. There's long been a gap in my understanding of the behavior of the Greek gods; it's seemed strange to me that they could toy with humans when they resemble them so much. One of the gifts of this work is that through Miller's portrayal of Thetis, I understand how different gods and mortals really are.    

Excerpt (Patroclus meets Thetis for the first time):

A breeze blew down the beach and, grateful, I closed my eyes to it. When I opened them again, she was standing before me.

She was taller than I was, taller than any woman I had ever seen. Her black hair was loose down her back, and her skin shone luminous and impossibly pale, as it if drank light from the moon. She was so close I could smell her, seawater laced with dark brown honey. I did not breathe. I did not dare.

"You are Patroclus." I flinched at the sound of her voice, hoarse and rasping. I had expected chimes, not the grinding of rocks in the surf.

"Yes, lady."

Distaste ran over her face. Her eyes were not like a human's; they were black to their center and flecked with gold. I could not bring myself to meet them.

"He will be a god," she said. I did not know what to say, so I said nothing. She leaned forward, and I half-thought she might touch me. But of course she did not.

"Do you understand?" I could feel her breath on my cheek, not warm at all, but chilled like the depths of the sea. Do you understand? He had told me that she hated to be kept waiting.

"Yes."

She leaned closer still, looming over me. Her mouth was a gash of red, like the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice, bloody and oracular. Behind it her teeth shone sharp and white as bone.

"Good." Carelessly, as if to herself, she added, "You will be dead soon enough."

She turned and dove into the sea, leaving no ripples behind her.        

What's Missing is What Matters

Harrison Shepherd, American-born boy explorer, cook, plaster-mixer, typist, deliverer of paintings, and writer, is a creature of the author's imagination, but he inhabits a world of historical fact. After a childhood marked by his mother's mercurial sequential romances in Mexico, the fictional Shepherd becomes part of the household of artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, including their houseguest Leon Trotsky. This association, while hardly political in nature, proves extremely difficult when Shepherd returns to the U.S. during the Red Scare of the 1950s. There he faces the challenges of being a famous but publicity-shunning novelist, aided by his stalwart secretary/personal assistant, Violet Brown.

This is all pretty rarified air, but Kingsolver brings it off with aplomb. Somehow all these historical figures fail to distract from the details of Shepherd's life - perhaps because Kingsolver has so effectively drawn his character through multiple methods: diaries or daybooks kept by Shepherd himself, commentary by Violet Brown, plus newspaper articles, book reviews, letters sent and received, and congressional hearing transcripts. It's a lovely and effective mishmash.

Throughout the narrative Kingsolver has included a series of "lacunae" - absences that give the title a pleasing resonance as the novel progresses. A lacuna can be a gap in a narrative, or a cavity in the structure of a bone, or a space in a plant cell. In Shepherd's case, the lacuna is a gap in a rock wall that leads to a tunnel and an escape to another world, a missing notebook in his lifelong series of written observations of his world, a life lived beyond the reports in the newspapers, and what remains unspoken between lovers and friends in the silences between words.

As Shepherd himself says, "The most important part of a story is the piece of it you don't know." The gaps in Kingsolver's story speak volumes, in a most satisfactory way.  

(This book appeared on my TBR list as an Orange Prize winner; I selected it as the yellow book for the Color Coded Reading Challenge and also for the Mount TBR Challenge.)

Excerpt:

And now, at the end of everything, this: standing waist-deep in the ocean wearing the diving goggle, with Leandro watching. A pack of village boys had come along too, their dark arms swinging, carrying the long knives they used for collecting oysters. White sand caked the sides of their feet like pale moccasins. They stopped to watch, all the swinging arms stopped, frozen in place, waiting. There was nothing left for him to do but take a breath and dive into that blue place.

And oh God there it was, the promise delivered, a world. Fishes mad with color, striped and dotted, golden bodies, blue heads. Societies of fish, a public, suspended in its watery world, poking pointed noses into coral.

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2016

This will do it for me this year. Really it will. I'll probably post a few more of the on-going lists, but this is it for challenges in 2016.

Unless something irresistible comes along, of course.

Overlaps are specifically allowed for this challenge, but I already committed to 9 books, so it didn't seem fair to choose only 12. Why not push ahead, yes? So I've chosen the Mount Blanc level of 24 books that have been "waiting in the wings for weeks...months...even years" -- as eloquently expressed by the sign-up post at My Reader's Block.

The last 5 slots are blank because yikes, I might need some oxygen along the way! Especially if my calculations are correct and when I finish that 19th book I'll have read all the Booker Winners -- cause for celebration at the end of a long road!

Sign-ups go through November 1st, if you're interested.

1. Heart of Palm - Laura Lee Smith (Florida Book Award) finished 6/18/16 (review)
2. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize) finished 7/5/16 (review)
3. The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (Orange/Baileys Prize) finished 8/9/16 (review)
4. The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller (Orange/Baileys Prize) finished 8/13/16 (review)
5. The Famished Road - Ben Okri (Booker Prize) finished 9/10/16 (review)
6. Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil (DSC Prize) finished 10/20/16 (review)
7. The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri (DSC Prize) finished 10/30/16 (review)
8. Tourist Season - Enid Shomer (Florida Book Award) finished 11/3/16 (review)
9. Ilustrado - Miguel Syjuco (Man Asian Prize) finished 1/16/17 (too late!) (review)
10. Life and Times of Michael K - J.M. Coetzee (Booker Prize)
11. Rites of Passage - William Golding (Booker Prize)
12. Schindler's Ark - Thomas Kenally (Booker Prize)
13. Holiday - Stanley Middleton (Booker Prize)
14. Something to Answer For - P.H. Newby (Booker Prize)
15. The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (Booker Prize)
16. The Finkler Question - Howard Jacobson (Booker Prize)
17. Bring up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize) finished 7/13/16 (review)
18. The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (Booker Prize)
19. A Brief History of Seven Killings - Marlon James (Booker Prize)
20. TBD The Survival of the Bark Canoe - John McPhee finished 7/14/16 (review)
21. TBD The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection - Alexander McCall Smith finished 7/15/16 (review)
22. TBD Islands in the Stream - Ernest Hemingway finished 9/10/16 (review)
23. TBD
24. TBD

The Color Coded Reading Challenge 2016

I'm late to the party, but . . . . Whatever.

Nine books in 2016 (only 6 months for me, because yikes, it's already June), chosen because they have certain colors in the title or on the cover: shades of blue, red, yellow, green, brown, black, and white, plus one color of your choice, plus one with a word that implies color (rainbow, paisley, stripe, etc.).

This challenge is chosen in accordance with my personal rule -- newly enacted just today -- that I will not accept any challenges that require the reading of books that aren't already on my TBR List. The TBR List grows just fine on its own, thank you very much.

Anyone not filled up with challenge reading already is welcome to check out My Reader's Block and join in. Then at least I'll be ahead of one person!

Here's my list:

Blue: Heart of Palm - Laure Lee Smith (Florida Book Award) finished 6/18/16 (review)
Red: Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize) finished 7/5/16 (review)
Yellow: The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver (Orange/Baileys Prize) finished 8/9/16 (review)
Green: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller (Orange/Baileys Prize) finished 8/13/16 (review)
Brown: The Famished Road - Ben Okri (Booker Prize) finished 9/10/16 (review)
Black: Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil (DSC Prize) finished 10/20/16 (review)
White: The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri (DSC Prize) finished 10/30/16 (review)
Choice: Tourist Season - Enid Shomer (pale aqua) (Florida Book Award) finished 11/3/16 (review)
Implied: Ilustrado - Miguel Syjuco (you have to illustrate with colors, or at least with black and white, right?) (Man Asian Prize) finished 1/16/17 (too late!) (review)

Confusing, and Maybe It's Just Me

I said I wasn't going to do any more reviews, and I'm not. However, I still feel like saying something about this one, so I'm going to. If the spirit moves me, maybe I'll say something about some others, too. We'll see. No promises.

I found this novel puzzling. It's very well written, in a sometimes self-consciously poetic way. Obreht can surely paint a scene. At various times I could feel the hot breath of the tiger, sense the creepiness of a man's figure dimly perceived in the shadows, and smell the scents of a fresh field and the forest beyond.

But the threads of the plot are interwoven, moving back and forth in time, and the politics involved were a mystery to me the entire time. Somewhere in the Balkans, there is ethnic war coming, and happening, and in the past, while the narrator tries to do her job as a doctor and make sense of her grandfather's death under unusual circumstances.

Leftover minefields have to be crossed, buildings and bridges are bombed, and everyone in the country - from small town citizens to the animals in the metropolitan zoo - suffers, and some of them die.  All this is the historical backdrop for a personalized story I never really understood. At the end I was left thinking, "What just happened?" The fact that there is some magical realism going on doesn't help clarify things, either (although I liked those parts a lot).

I also have to say I was disappointed that The Jungle Book, which is a pivotal plot point, didn't seem to have any important thematic parallels to the story. There were a few references to Shere Khan (who is terrifying arrogant and cowardly in the authentic, non-Disney version, just in case you don't know that) and some of the other Kipling characters, and the Big Hunter with the Big Gun is a buffoon in both stories, and there are some strong superstitions wafting about in both villages, but other than that, practically any book could have served as the focal point.

I'm left thinking that I'm too deficient in background to figure it out on my own. I'm perfectly willing to say that's my own darn fault.

My conclusion is that this is a pleasant read and well-written, but you might be wise to read a few reviews before you read the book itself. I'm off to read them now and see if they enlighten me. If not, well, it was still worth reading, and not only because it means I can cross another Orange Prize winner off my TBR list.

Excerpt:

Sitting at the hearth in Mother Vera's house, my grandfather drew the shape of the tiger in the ashes, and thought about seeing and knowing--about how everyone knew, without having seen, that Luka was dead, and that the tiger was a devil, and that the girl was carrying the tiger's baby. He wondered why it didn't occur to anyone to know other things--to know, as he knew, that the tiger meant them no harm, and that what went on in that house had nothing to do with Luka, or the village, or the baby: nightfall, hours of silence, and then, quiet as a river, the tiger coming down from the hills, dragging with him that sour, heavy smell, snow dewing on his ears and back. And then, for hours by the fireside, comfort and warmth--the girl leaning against his side and combing the burrs and tree sap out of the tiger's fur while the big cat lay, broad-backed and rumbling, red tongue peeling the cold out of his paws.

Reading Again

After a long drought (nearly a year without finishing a book!), I've started reading again. Sometimes I only manage a page or two, after a particularly long, tiring day, but it is very nice to have a few moments outside my own life before I turn out the lights.

I only read 3 books in all of 2012, but in the past 2 months I've already read 6 books. That's not a lot for some people. Heck, that's not a lot even for me. But at least it shows that I'm building up some momentum again. Maybe I'm even returning to my previous form of being an avid reader.

I'm just about to start The Tiger's Wife and it sounds really interesting. It's the story of a young doctor trying to figure out the truth about her grandfather's recent death by revisiting his beloved volume of Kipling's The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere. Nice concept, isn't it?

I tend to enjoy books that refer to other books, anyway, so this one should be a breeze, filled with references to stories I knew and loved as a child.

What's surprising about this book is that it doesn't start with an epigraph from Kipling's book. You'd think it would, right? And my copy is inscribed by the author (I think - it's one of those very stylized signatures so I can't be sure), "To Kathy, with so much gratitude."

Apparently Kathy did not reciprocate, or something else happened to separate her from this book. Another mystery.

Book Fair Treasures

The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair was - once again - well worth the trip!  It's held in a historic building that is simply gorgeous, inside and out.

The building also has a fantastic Art Deco ladies' room, but I didn't take any photos in there, for obvious reasons. It would be a real tragedy if I was invited never to come back again.   

There was plenty of Floridiana on display, including various Rawlings books and several sections of space-related science fiction flaunting exotic "pulp fiction" covers. 

Some of the books were pricey, but many were in the under-$100 range and a couple of dealers had designated $5-$10 shelves, which were great for the bargain-hunters. They didn't do me much good, though, because I was not hunting for bargains but for prize winners.      

I found this signed Booker Prize winner. It's an oppressively sad book (review here), but I didn't resist.

I was very happy to also find this nice copy of an Orange Prize winner that's still on the TBR list. It was especially nice that the dealer I bought the Enright book from asked me what I was looking for, perused my much-folded and smudged shopping list, then walked to another booth all the way across the hall to borrow this one from another dealer and bring it back to show me. So it has a nice little memory attached to it, also.     

I spent my discretionary money on this pretty Florida bracelet and some vintage Florida postcards. All in all, a very successful day! 



Colorful Reading Challenge Review: Half of a Yellow Sun

I've often felt that the Orange Prize winners are somehow smaller, more personal, and--dare I say it?--more feminine than the Booker Prize winners. And this novel is perhaps that, intertwining as it does the saga of Olanna, a university professor's beautiful young mistress; Ugwu, the adolescent houseboy of the professor; and Richard, an Englishman who is more-or-less desperately in love with Olanna's fierce, worldly sister.

Told this way, it could almost be a bodice-ripping romance novel. But set in Biafra during Biafra's fight to become independent from Nigeria in the 1960's, this novel becomes so much more.

We follow these three characters through testing times of war, times in which ideas are dangerous, houses are raided, young men are captured and forced to join the army, blockades are run, racial and social hatreds flare into violence, and physical danger and hardship become a way of life. The story of this woman and this family becomes a microcosm for the country itself.

While the scale is small, while we get to know the domestic and personal lives of these characters intimately, there is nothing "romantic" or "feminine" about this book. Instead, what shines through is the human capacity to endure and adapt, to hope and persevere.

Excerpt:*

Now, in the hospital where they had left him, he no longer wanted to die, but he feared he would; there were so many bodies littered around him, on mats, on mattresses, on the bare floor. There was so much blood everywhere. He heard the sharp screams of men when the doctor examined them and knew that his was not the worst case, even as he felt his own blood seeping out, first warm and then clammy cold against his side. The blood took his will; he was too exhausted to do anything about it and when the nurses hurried past him and left his bandaging unchanged, he did not call out to them. . . . And in his lucid moments, death occupied him. He tried to visualize a heaven, a God seated on a throne, but could not. Yet the alternative vision, that death was nothing but an endless silence, seemed unlikely. There was a part of him that dreamed, and he was not sure if that part could ever retreat into an interminable silence. Death would be a complete knowingness, but what frightened him was this: not knowing beforehand what it was he would know.

*Because Blogger ate my paragraphs, the original paragraphs in this excerpt no longer appear. My apologies for the inaccurate spacing.

Real Good for Free

(Anyone else remember that old Joni Mitchell song?)

A nice hardback copy of this book arrived this week through PaperbackSwap.com, an upgrade for my Orange Prize collection. I read this one a while back, and am happy now to have a good copy on hand.

This one is a first edition, in good condition, though nothing spectacular. Someone wrote in the front and someone else--I'm assuming a different person--saw fit to scribble out the inscription in thick black marker. Why they thought that would be an improvement over the inscription, I don't know. Perhaps the inscription wasn't very nice. Perhaps they had a falling out with its writer. Perhaps they borrowed the book, failed to return it, and decided to cover their tracks. Perhaps my imagination is a tad too vivid.

The front of the book jacket has a slash near the lower right corner, repaired with clear tape. It looks like maybe whoever opened the packing box was too enthusiastic with the box cutter. At first I was a little disappointed at such an obvious flaw; I prefer my books pristine, when possible. But on further reflection, I rather like it. The "idea of perfection" in the title and in the book's major theme comes from the Amish belief that perfection is God's bailiwick, and so every quilt, no matter how carefully made, should have a little mistake in it somewhere.

Now it seems extraordinarily fitting that this copy isn't perfect. The book's physical properties embody its contents, and how often does that happen? It's still real nice, and the price was right.

This Time, Not So Much

Oh, my heart was going pitter pat when I opened the latest swap book that arrived in the mail and saw this practically pristine copy of Larry's Party, a hardback upgrade for my Orange Prize collection.

I was holding my breath as I peeked inside and saw that yes, it's a first edition!

I may even have felt a few tremors in my fingers when I checked abe.com to see what a fine/fine copy of the first edition is worth.

I got a good laugh about it, too. This baby is worth . . . can you guess? . . . $1.00.

This time the joke's on me!

(Can you tell I also collect souvenir pencils?)

Orange Prize for Fiction (Read and TBR)

I read the Orange Prize* winners, as well as the Bookers. The Orange Prize for Fiction is given to "the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English." Trust me, figuring out what novels are eligible is a bit complex. But once they figure out the winner, I'm there.

This prize isn't as well-known as some of the others, but trust me, there are some gems among the winners here. Blue means they're on my TBR shelf. Green means I am still on the lookout for them. As with the Bookers, I wouldn't mind having a hardback collection of these, so I'm tracking that, too.**

*A/k/a the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction (2014-2017), the Women's Prize for Fiction (2013), the Orange Prize for Fiction (1996–2006 & 2009–12), and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction (2007–2008). Talk about a checkered history!

**Update: Due to a lack of shelf space and an ongoing determination to simplify, I won't be keeping this collection. Once they're read, these books will be passed along to another reader.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun (2007)
Naomi Alderman, The Power (2017) (did not read)
Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood (1999)

Susanna Clarke, Piranesi (2021)
Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter (1996)

V.V. Ganeshananthan, Brotherless Night (2024)
Linda Grant, When I Lived in Modern Times (2000)
Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection (2001)
A.M. Homes, May We Be Forgiven (2013) 
Tayari Jones, An American Marriage (2019)

Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead (2023)
Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna (2010)
Andrea Levy, Small Island (2004)
Valerie Martin, Property (2003)
Eimear McBride, A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing (2014)
Lisa McInerney, The Glorious Heresies (2016)

Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces (1997)
Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles (2012)
Tea Obreht, The Tiger's Wife (2011) 

Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet (2020)

Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form & Emptiness (2022)

Ann Patchett, Bel Canto (2002)
Marilynne Robinson, Home (2009)
Kamila Shamsie, Home Fire (2018)
Carol Shields, Larry's Party (1998)
Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005) (HB)
Ali Smith, How to be Both (2015) (HB)
Zadie Smith, On Beauty (2006) (HB)
Rose Tremain, The Road Home (2008) (HB)

Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep (2025) 

Anticipation 2009

First, the Challenge Stack, thanks to the Themed Reading Challenge. These are books that I started and never finished, or that other people have told me they started and never finished. I'm calling them "Guilty Conscience Books" and I'm taking one for the team on those, so to speak.

And if that isn't enough, there's also the Prizes Shelf: the rest of the Man Booker winners, and the rest of the Orange Prize for Fiction winners. I still have to track down a couple of the Man Bookers to make my list complete. But tracking them down is part of the fun!

Oh, and the Great Books compilation my new book group reads . . . . So far, it looks like 2009 is going to be a very good year.