September Polls
Voting ends at noon on Wednesday, the 30th. Results will be posted Wednesday night. If you just can't wait to find out what we're reading next and I'm not here to post the results, just look and see which books are winning and assume those will be the chosen ones. That should be self explanatory, I know, but just a reminder.
1st book of September
September 1st-18th
2nd book of September
September 18th-30th
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty - they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends - so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet - a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described. As its chapters unfold, alternating between an idyllic past and an unthinkable present, "The Pact" paints an indelible portrait of families in anguish...culminating in an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris finds himself on trial for murder.
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
THIS COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND VIGNETTES MARKED ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S AMERICAN DEBUT AND MADE HIM FAMOUS When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler," and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose -- enlivened by an car for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic that suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of heart. Now recognized as one of the most original short story collections in twentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides a key to Hemingway's later works.
A Stranger in This World: Stories by Kevin Canty
A Stranger in This World marks the debut of a powerful new talent. With a voice akin to those of Denis Johnson and Richard Ford, westerner Kevin Canty is a versatile and intelligent writer whose stories both shock and transfix. In this extraordinary collection, he portrays - with frightening calm - the unpredictable darkness of everyday life. Canty describes territory we all know well, but with a twist; his characters live on the verge of the unthinkable. Each voice rings unforgettably true: in "Pretty Judy," a young boy is caught in an obsessive sexual relationship with a mentally retarded neighbor; in "The Victim," a telephone sales operator's chance encounter with a deranged drunken driver leads her and her boyfriend to unimaginable actions. From the misadventures of an alcoholic plant worker trying to go straight ("Junk") to a stoned suburban lifeguard whose fantasies about a Mrs. Robinson-like older woman almost result in tragedy ("Blue Boy"), in this gripping and original collection Canty invites the reader into an uncharted world of risk-taking and danger. Disturbing yet compellingly readable, these stories explore the gap between disappointment and hope, between life as it could be and life as it is, between - as the narrator of "The King of the Elephants" sees it - a horizon "full of Western stars, cold and distinct," and "this mottled, milky Southern sky."
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
This was THE book of the 50's and early 60's, along with Catcher in the Rye. In some strange way, J.D. Salinger caught the angst of the young and thoughtful and they grabbed these books with both hands. But do they speak to youth (or anyone else) today?
Well, maybe Franny and Zooey is worth a look. For one, take the fact that "The Prayer of Jabez" is on the best seller list now for weeks. This book recommends a fixed prayer, to be repeated as sort of a meditation. In Franny and Zooey, Franny, a brilliant and introspective teenager, comes home frantically repeating the "Jesus Prayer", looking for some kind of metaphysical escape from herself. She's looking for some kind of Zen-like release from ego. Part of growing up is discovering who we are and we may not like everything we see. Part of maturation, much later on, is accepting even those flaws. But Franny wants an instant release from distasteful self-discovery, so she heads instead for destruction.
Her brother Zooey saves her by an ingenious bit of sophistry; isn't focusing on escaping the self a form of egotism? He argues that her ideas are flawed and provides a lot of interesting arguments about her belief system. For example, his astute remarks that Franny disapproves of Jesus and is more sympathetic with Buddhism is strikingly akin to people today who feel strongly they must become vegetarian and disapprove of Christians and yet cannot say exactly why, except that they feel Christians criticize them and that animals are somehow innocent and all-loving. Consider this quote from Zooey:
"And the other thing you disapproved of- the thing you had the Bible open to- was the lines 'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.' That was all right. That was lovely. That you approved of. But, when Jesus says in the same breath, 'Are ye not much better than they?'- ah, that's where little Franny gets off. That's where little Franny quits the Bible cold and goes straight to Buddha, who doesn't discriminate against all those nice fowls of the air. All those sweet, lovely chickens and geese that we used to keep up at the Lake."
Salinger's uncanny depiction of the anguish of youth, coupled with Eastern mysticism and an eccentric but lovable family became a cult classic in the 50's. While Catcher in the Rye unerringly pinpoints the feelings of a teenage boy, Franny catches so much of the feelings of a girl that some analysts of the book have proposed that the real reason behind Franny's breakdown was that she was pregnant. I totally reject that notion, but it is interesting that her troubles are so well described that readers ascribe a typical teen trouble, rather than the fact that Franny, like Holden Caulfield, is facing maturity with fear and loathing. Worth reading.
The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney
Unlike the Graces of Greek mythology, the ones in Patricia Gaffney's feel-good novel, The Saving Graces, are not in the business of dispensing charm and beauty. Though they possess some measure of good looks, Gaffney's Graces are more focused on the less ethereal problems of life: men, careers, babies, death. And there are four, rather than three, of them (Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel), who have been getting together for regular dinners in their Washington, D.C., homes for 10 years.
The narration of The Saving Graces rotates among the four women and gets right to the heart of each Grace--the stories they tell stick close to the territory of their emotional lives. This intimate directness makes Gaffney's women seem, well, womanly. Serene Isabel, who has always been "the best champion, the kindest friend" to all the other Graces, is dying of breast cancer. Rudy needs to leave her ultra-controlling husband. Lee, usually the rational one, is possessed by her desire to have a baby. Ironic Emma wants to write a novel and has a hard crush on a married man. This group feels messy and real: they keep secrets from each other, grate on one another's nerves, and analyze each other. But ultimately, all four know that they've lucked into a very good thing. Not just because they share the sweetness and silliness that comes with friendship, but also because they are willing to act as soldiers for each other. When Rudy finally gets up the nerve to leave her husband, for example, she doesn't do it alone: "Isabel stood on my right, Lee on my left. Emma had taken a seat on the bed--an escalation of the offense, usurping more enemy territory." In Gaffney's universe, women armed with grace, humor, and a couple of good girlfriends can transcend even the most painful events in their lives
A Patch of Blue by Elizabeth Kata
This is the story of Selina, a young woman who was blinded at an early age and lives a life of squalor with her hootchie mama and her drunken grandfather. In the park one day stringing beads (her work) she meets Gordon, and they fall in love with one another's inner beauty. Gordon is the only one who has cared enough to teach her anything. Selina's mother has plans to use her daughter in a whorehouse, and it looks like Selina will be forced to go along with it unless Gordon can save her. A movie was made of the novel in the 1960's with Elizabeth Hartman as Selina; Sidney Potier as Gordon; Shelley Winters as the mother; and Wallace Ford as "Ole Pa", the grandfather. The movie stays true to the book, which is wonderful as the book is so beautifully written. It really made a statement for racial equality in its time and still does today. It's a short book, and worth the investment of both time and money for a story you will never forget.
Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes
According to Paul Trilby, there's something weird going on at the Texas Department of General Services, where he slaves away as the lowliest-of-lowly corporate workers, the office temp. Of course, Paul also thinks his apartment is haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife's cat, and that egg-headed aliens wearing pocket protectors are stalking his daily commute. Yes, ol' Paul's grasp on reality is none too secure, but that's understandable. Divorced, destitute, and driving a rattletrap clunker amidst a sea of sleek SUVs, Paul's down-and-out existence is a far cry from his former glory days as an up-and-coming university professor. Confronted by his smarmy co-workers (who are not above selling their souls for a better gig), Paul is introduced to a mysterious world of former employees, equally downtrodden middlemen downsized in state budget cuts. The only difference is--they're dead. In the best tradition of Baum, Carroll, and Orwell, Hynes crafts a mordantly incisive satire on a corporate America where incompetence is rewarded and talent ignored.
Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt
"Black Elk Speaks is the story of the Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) and his people during the momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt (1881-1973) in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and chose Neihardt to tell his story. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk's experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind." This new edition features two additional essays by John G. Neihardt that further illuminate his experience with Black Elk; an essay by Alexis Petri, great-granddaughter of John G. Neihardt, that celebrates Neihardt's remarkable accomplishments; and a look at the legacy of the special relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk, written by Lori Utecht, editor of Knowledge and Opinion: Essays and Literary Criticism of John G. Neihardt.
1st book of September
September 1st-18th
2nd book of September
September 18th-30th
The Pact by Jodi Picoult
For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty - they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends - so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born. So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet - a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described. As its chapters unfold, alternating between an idyllic past and an unthinkable present, "The Pact" paints an indelible portrait of families in anguish...culminating in an astonishingly suspenseful courtroom drama as Chris finds himself on trial for murder.
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
THIS COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES AND VIGNETTES MARKED ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S AMERICAN DEBUT AND MADE HIM FAMOUS When In Our Time was published in 1925, it was praised by Ford Madox Ford, John Dos Passos, and F. Scott Fitzgerald for its simple and precise use of language to convey a wide range of complex emotions, and it earned Hemingway a place beside Sherwood Anderson and Gertrude Stein among the most promising American writers of that period. In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler," and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose -- enlivened by an car for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic that suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of heart. Now recognized as one of the most original short story collections in twentieth-century literature, In Our Time provides a key to Hemingway's later works.
A Stranger in This World: Stories by Kevin Canty
A Stranger in This World marks the debut of a powerful new talent. With a voice akin to those of Denis Johnson and Richard Ford, westerner Kevin Canty is a versatile and intelligent writer whose stories both shock and transfix. In this extraordinary collection, he portrays - with frightening calm - the unpredictable darkness of everyday life. Canty describes territory we all know well, but with a twist; his characters live on the verge of the unthinkable. Each voice rings unforgettably true: in "Pretty Judy," a young boy is caught in an obsessive sexual relationship with a mentally retarded neighbor; in "The Victim," a telephone sales operator's chance encounter with a deranged drunken driver leads her and her boyfriend to unimaginable actions. From the misadventures of an alcoholic plant worker trying to go straight ("Junk") to a stoned suburban lifeguard whose fantasies about a Mrs. Robinson-like older woman almost result in tragedy ("Blue Boy"), in this gripping and original collection Canty invites the reader into an uncharted world of risk-taking and danger. Disturbing yet compellingly readable, these stories explore the gap between disappointment and hope, between life as it could be and life as it is, between - as the narrator of "The King of the Elephants" sees it - a horizon "full of Western stars, cold and distinct," and "this mottled, milky Southern sky."
Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
This was THE book of the 50's and early 60's, along with Catcher in the Rye. In some strange way, J.D. Salinger caught the angst of the young and thoughtful and they grabbed these books with both hands. But do they speak to youth (or anyone else) today?
Well, maybe Franny and Zooey is worth a look. For one, take the fact that "The Prayer of Jabez" is on the best seller list now for weeks. This book recommends a fixed prayer, to be repeated as sort of a meditation. In Franny and Zooey, Franny, a brilliant and introspective teenager, comes home frantically repeating the "Jesus Prayer", looking for some kind of metaphysical escape from herself. She's looking for some kind of Zen-like release from ego. Part of growing up is discovering who we are and we may not like everything we see. Part of maturation, much later on, is accepting even those flaws. But Franny wants an instant release from distasteful self-discovery, so she heads instead for destruction.
Her brother Zooey saves her by an ingenious bit of sophistry; isn't focusing on escaping the self a form of egotism? He argues that her ideas are flawed and provides a lot of interesting arguments about her belief system. For example, his astute remarks that Franny disapproves of Jesus and is more sympathetic with Buddhism is strikingly akin to people today who feel strongly they must become vegetarian and disapprove of Christians and yet cannot say exactly why, except that they feel Christians criticize them and that animals are somehow innocent and all-loving. Consider this quote from Zooey:
"And the other thing you disapproved of- the thing you had the Bible open to- was the lines 'Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.' That was all right. That was lovely. That you approved of. But, when Jesus says in the same breath, 'Are ye not much better than they?'- ah, that's where little Franny gets off. That's where little Franny quits the Bible cold and goes straight to Buddha, who doesn't discriminate against all those nice fowls of the air. All those sweet, lovely chickens and geese that we used to keep up at the Lake."
Salinger's uncanny depiction of the anguish of youth, coupled with Eastern mysticism and an eccentric but lovable family became a cult classic in the 50's. While Catcher in the Rye unerringly pinpoints the feelings of a teenage boy, Franny catches so much of the feelings of a girl that some analysts of the book have proposed that the real reason behind Franny's breakdown was that she was pregnant. I totally reject that notion, but it is interesting that her troubles are so well described that readers ascribe a typical teen trouble, rather than the fact that Franny, like Holden Caulfield, is facing maturity with fear and loathing. Worth reading.
The Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney
Unlike the Graces of Greek mythology, the ones in Patricia Gaffney's feel-good novel, The Saving Graces, are not in the business of dispensing charm and beauty. Though they possess some measure of good looks, Gaffney's Graces are more focused on the less ethereal problems of life: men, careers, babies, death. And there are four, rather than three, of them (Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel), who have been getting together for regular dinners in their Washington, D.C., homes for 10 years.
The narration of The Saving Graces rotates among the four women and gets right to the heart of each Grace--the stories they tell stick close to the territory of their emotional lives. This intimate directness makes Gaffney's women seem, well, womanly. Serene Isabel, who has always been "the best champion, the kindest friend" to all the other Graces, is dying of breast cancer. Rudy needs to leave her ultra-controlling husband. Lee, usually the rational one, is possessed by her desire to have a baby. Ironic Emma wants to write a novel and has a hard crush on a married man. This group feels messy and real: they keep secrets from each other, grate on one another's nerves, and analyze each other. But ultimately, all four know that they've lucked into a very good thing. Not just because they share the sweetness and silliness that comes with friendship, but also because they are willing to act as soldiers for each other. When Rudy finally gets up the nerve to leave her husband, for example, she doesn't do it alone: "Isabel stood on my right, Lee on my left. Emma had taken a seat on the bed--an escalation of the offense, usurping more enemy territory." In Gaffney's universe, women armed with grace, humor, and a couple of good girlfriends can transcend even the most painful events in their lives
A Patch of Blue by Elizabeth Kata
This is the story of Selina, a young woman who was blinded at an early age and lives a life of squalor with her hootchie mama and her drunken grandfather. In the park one day stringing beads (her work) she meets Gordon, and they fall in love with one another's inner beauty. Gordon is the only one who has cared enough to teach her anything. Selina's mother has plans to use her daughter in a whorehouse, and it looks like Selina will be forced to go along with it unless Gordon can save her. A movie was made of the novel in the 1960's with Elizabeth Hartman as Selina; Sidney Potier as Gordon; Shelley Winters as the mother; and Wallace Ford as "Ole Pa", the grandfather. The movie stays true to the book, which is wonderful as the book is so beautifully written. It really made a statement for racial equality in its time and still does today. It's a short book, and worth the investment of both time and money for a story you will never forget.
Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes
According to Paul Trilby, there's something weird going on at the Texas Department of General Services, where he slaves away as the lowliest-of-lowly corporate workers, the office temp. Of course, Paul also thinks his apartment is haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife's cat, and that egg-headed aliens wearing pocket protectors are stalking his daily commute. Yes, ol' Paul's grasp on reality is none too secure, but that's understandable. Divorced, destitute, and driving a rattletrap clunker amidst a sea of sleek SUVs, Paul's down-and-out existence is a far cry from his former glory days as an up-and-coming university professor. Confronted by his smarmy co-workers (who are not above selling their souls for a better gig), Paul is introduced to a mysterious world of former employees, equally downtrodden middlemen downsized in state budget cuts. The only difference is--they're dead. In the best tradition of Baum, Carroll, and Orwell, Hynes crafts a mordantly incisive satire on a corporate America where incompetence is rewarded and talent ignored.
Black Elk Speaks by John Neihardt
"Black Elk Speaks is the story of the Lakota visionary and healer Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) and his people during the momentous twilight years of the nineteenth century. Black Elk met the distinguished poet, writer, and critic John G. Neihardt (1881-1973) in 1930 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and chose Neihardt to tell his story. Neihardt understood and conveyed Black Elk's experiences in this powerful and inspirational message for all humankind." This new edition features two additional essays by John G. Neihardt that further illuminate his experience with Black Elk; an essay by Alexis Petri, great-granddaughter of John G. Neihardt, that celebrates Neihardt's remarkable accomplishments; and a look at the legacy of the special relationship between Neihardt and Black Elk, written by Lori Utecht, editor of Knowledge and Opinion: Essays and Literary Criticism of John G. Neihardt.