Book Review: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Publisher: Scholastic Press (September 14, 2008),
ISBN-10: 0439023483

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: Recommended Read

I kept seeing reviews at Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books on The Hunger Games. (Great place to check out book reviews, by the way.) It sounded so interesting that I stopped by our local independent bookstore to pick it up but, alas, it was only out in hardback and I wasn't ready to shell out almost twenty bucks for it. Instead, I waited until it became available at our local library. Then I devoured it. Yes, devoured...it was that good.

Here a few links to some good reviews of the book:

Books and Movies
The Sleepy Reader
Diary of an Eccentric

I don't think I have much to add as far as a review goes. If you're a young adult fiction fan, you probably already know about this book and have either read it or at least have it on your list. If you're not much into YA reads, try it anyway. I don't think you'll be disappointed. While I didn't find any "Good Words" to add to my list, this was story-telling at its best. Collins pulled me in and kept me going through all 374 pages. Excellent.

My friend Sandra got me interested in reading Young Adult fiction some years ago. I had always kind of turned my nose up at it but, man-oh-man, is there some good stuff out there! Then I coached a private school's Battle of the Books team for two years and read some truly memorable works. It's been a while since I've ventured back into this area of reading but I'm glad to be back. Here's a list of some of my past YA favorites:

The Giver by Lois Lowry*
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park*
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Audio) by John Boyne*
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak*
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko*
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
Goodnight, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer*
Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Torn Thread by Anne Isaacs
The City of Ember Jeanne DuPrae*
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
Among the Hidden by Marg Peterson Haddix
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen*
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse*
Red Scarf Girl by Ji-li Jiang
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith*
A Year Down Yonder (Audio) by Richard Peck*

*Highly Recommend!

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A Tested Faith

I'm still working my way s-l-o-w-l-y through Peterson's book The Jesus Way....I was just going back over the chapter on Abraham. Peterson shows that the "way" of Abraham is threefold: faith, sacrifice, and testing. This passage helped me today:

God has tested Abraham's faith at every turn. To live by faith - better, to live a faith life - means to be tested. Abraham's faith did not always survive the test: his faith failed the test in Egypt, failed the test in Gerar, failed the test with Hagar. Untested faith does not yet qualify as faith. Untested faith, having the appearance of faith, the feeling of faith, the language of faith, may be only wishful thinking, or an adolescent illusion, erotic dreaming, satanic delusion, a cultural cliche, a cover for self-sovereignty - whatever. Kierkegaard named all such as "caricatures of faith." There are many occasions in which the word "faith" is used for something or other that is not faith.

The test is the catalyst in which our response to God, the raw material of faith, is formed into a life of faith. Or not. If the test dissolves whatever we were calling faith into romanticized sludge or pietistic ooze, we are blessedly rid of what will dissipate our life in self-deception.

I pray today first to be able to recognize the tests that God sends my way. The big, scary things are often easy to identify as tests: the marriage coming undone, the lost job, the sick child. But I pray for eyes to see the little day-to-day testings: the opportunities to share God with a co-worker, the chance to be kind in the face of anger, the call to show love and patience, grace and mercy.

May I respond to all tests with true faith (not just the appearance of it) that I might more and more live a life of faith. May my self-deceptive ideas of faith in God be purified by His refining fire. May my romanticised and pietistic ideas be dissolved and washed out of my heart.

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"

"Here I am," he replied.

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. Genesis 22:1-3

I pray for the faith this day to say "Here I am" ...and then to set out to the place the Lord has told me about...whether it's my office, my home, or the grocery store.

Blessings to you today -

CONTINUE READING...

God's Hand

Today in church we had a different speaker than normal because our Pastor is out of town on vacation. The gentleman who spoke is fairly new to our church and basically gave his testimony. He was the fifth son of a missionary couple to South America, grew up at a small seminary his parents ran in Venezuela, lived most of his adult life in California, and has just recently moved here to Pinehurst. He continually pointed out the many places God's hand had been so evident in his life. At the end, he encouraged us to look back over our lives and do the same.

He started off by reading part of an article that appeared in US Today this past Monday:

A few years ago, I witnessed two great British scientists in a showdown. Nine other journalists and I were on a Templeton fellowship at Cambridge University, and on this particular morning, the guest speaker was John Barrow. Almost as an aside to his talk, the Cambridge mathematician asserted that the astonishing precision of the universe was evidence for "divine action." At that, Richard Dawkins, the Oxford biologist and famous atheist, nearly leapt from his seat.

"But why would you want to look for evidence of divine action?" demanded Dawkins.

"For the same reason someone might not want to," Barrow responded with a little smile.

In that instant, I thought, there it is. God is a choice. You can look at the evidence and see life unfolding as a wholly material process, or you can see the hand of God.

As we were singing the last song before dismissing, I thought about all the signs of God's hand in my life that were right there around me in that very room:

::A husband - a man after God's heart, not perfect but always striving to be the husband, father, and servant God has called him to be - still standing beside me through 23 years of a marriage that by human standards had everything going against it from the beginning.

::My son up on the stage playing in the praise band, seeking God, growing into a wonderful young man.

::My first boss I had here in NC sitting in the row in front of me, so instrumental in Matt and I making the move here from Louisiana. And here in NC we eventually bought a house across the street from a pastor of a little church in town that would become our family's first church home and whose family would become some of the best friends we've ever had.

::Good friends sitting in the row behind me who have walked with us through daily life for the past few years...crying when we cry, laughing when we laugh, sharing whatever we have together.

::My teenage daughter a few seats down from me who has walked through some very hard spots in the past months but has only grown stronger as a person and has learned firsthand about the grace and mercy of God...and now more than ever knows she is truly a princess because she is the child of the King.

Yes, God is a choice. You can look at the evidence and see life unfolding as a wholly material process...or you can see the hand of God.

I choose to see the hand of God. What about you?

CONTINUE READING...

Reality

CONTINUE READING...

Picture Day

Since all the grandkids are in the same place today, my sister and I decided to try to get some good pictures of the kids. We went to our local community college's garden. It was hot...and the oldest grandson was the most uncooperative. But...we did get some good shots, I think -

CONTINUE READING...

Seven on Saturday

1. Mary had a wonderful time at Vacation Bible School this week at the local Alliance Church. They do such a beautiful job of putting this on each year. Matt was able to drop her off and I got finished with work in time to pick her up and spend the rest of the afternoon doing errands, going to the library, shopping at Goodwill, reading, or taking nap. It was a good week. Our family visited this church for a couple of months last year and loved their pastor and church body. Although this wasn't the church where we landed, I still wish they would get his sermons on line so I could keep up with his teachings. The lady who coordinated the VBS program, Susan, is a friend of ours and is a totally creative person. She has a business called Polka Dot Playground that you should check out. I especially liked her button art.

2. My nephew will be here sometime today! Oh - to have a little boy in the house again - what fun! Updates to come...

3. E got her final report card from this last semester at school and she totally slammed it. Straight A's all the way through! We are so very proud of her. A difficult year with a superb finish!

4. Mary and I visited Goodwill this week. We were dropping off a couple of bins, but of course it was just too tempting for both of us not to check out what treasures we might find in the store. So - Mary found a small blue quilted purse and a darling baby doll shirt. I (of course) found four great books (see list below), a brand new pair of black sandals, and four cool green bowls just waiting to hold some delicious black bean soup this weekend! (Wating: A Novel by Ha Jin (Won all kinds of awards...looks really interesting); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night by Mark Haddon; In the Woods by Tana French; The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer (Couldn't resist a short story collection!))

5. To Facebook or not to Facebook....that is the question. I have an account...or page or whatever you call it...I have friends...I get requests...suggestions...pokes(?)...surveys...I very seldom check it or post anything...I worry about not keeping it up...I don't understand all the different things it can do...Who can see my wall? How do people know I'm online? Hmmm....What to do? What to do? Delete it or no?

6. Yes, yes, I know Michael Jackson died this week. But, really, the bigger news for me was that Farrah Fawcett died!! I grew up with Charlie's Angels. I even collected the trading cards. I loved Jill. Who didn't? (I have to say, I really wanted to be Sabrina, though. Tough, funny, down to earth, smart, but still oh-so-beautiful!) I watched a few snippets of the documentary Farrah's Story that chronicles her battle with cancer that was recently aired on NBC. Looks like you can watch the whole thing here.

7. There's a blog I really enjoy reading that's listed under my "Honey Pots" on the sidebar. It's dreams of genevieve. Jenni, a young lady in Houston, inspires me to eat, write, and read better...to be a better homemaker...to more deliberately be a good wife...to more diligently seek after God. I've found several good resources from her, the one this week being Comment Magazine. I'm looking forward to finding time this weekend to read through some of the articles.
A blog worth the time...

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying: A Novel by Ernest J. Gaines, Publisher: Vintage; 1 edition (September 28, 1997), ISBN-10: 0375702709

Rating: 4 of 5 STARS
Source: 2009 Award-Winners TBR List (See sidebar list)

This book caught my eye because it's set in my native Louisiana. The setting is a little deeper into Cajun country than I grew up, but I was still looking forward to the flavor of home.

A young, mentally slow, black man, Jefferson, is convicted and sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit in a small community in the 1940s. The murder and subsequent trial only take up the first ten pages or so. The rest of the book tells the story of a black teacher set on escaping the racist confines of his hometown who is drawn, albeit unwillingly, into helping Jefferson to die with dignity.

I enjoyed Gaines' writing and his story-telling ability. Especially moving were Jefferson's diary entries at the end of the book written as he prepares to die in the days just before his execution. This book is full of great topics for discussion: religion, faith, racism, family, the death penalty. I would recommend A Lesson Before Dying as a book club selection. There's a lot of meat worth tearing into.

There weren't a lot of likable characters in this book. The teacher, Grant Wiggins, I found very crass, cold, and selfish. It's hard to really like a book when you don't like the main character. Jefferson, though pitiable, was hard to really like because you weren't given a whole lot about him other than he was semi-literate, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and scared to death.

And on Friday too. Always on Friday. Same time as He died, between twelve and three. But they can't take this one's life too soon after the recognition of His death, because it might upset the sensitive few. It can happen less than two weeks later, though, because even the sensitive few will have forgotten about their Savior's death by then.

"Me, Mr. Wiggins. Me. Me to take the cross. Your cross, nannan's cross, my own cross. Me, Mr. Wiggins. This old stumbling nigger. Y'all axe a lot, Mr. Wiggins." He went to the cell door and grasped it with both hands. He started to jerk on the door, but changed his mind and turned back to look at me. "Who ever car'd my cross, Mr. Wiggins?"


Not a favorite, but worth the read.

CONTINUE READING...

On Becoming Worthless

"What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?" - The Lord through Jeremiah the Prophet

I've been reading in the book of Jeremiah and finding much food for my soul. Little pieces of truth that I chew on for days at a time. The depth of the Word of God is amazing.

The verse above is Jeremiah 2:5 (ESV). The phrase "went after worthlessness, and became worthless" is what made me pause at first. The note I jotted down in the margin said, "The seeking (and doing) of sin pollutes the very essence of who we are...we can actually become those things."

Thinking some more on that...

:: When I seek out the latest juicy news (ie, gossip) about those with whom I live and work, I become a gossip.

::When I look around me and so easily become enraged or anxious over situations I, my family, my friends, or even my community finds themselves in, I become an angry and forlorn woman.

::When I find ways to twist the truth just a little here and there to make myself look a tiny bit better than what I actually am, I become a liar.

::When I look for a chance to compare myself to others, to subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) show that I am "better" than they are, a little more patient, a little more holy, a little more pure, I become self-righteous.

::When I look around and begin categorizing all the things I "have" that will keep me safe from disaster, that make me "worth" something, that prove I am a good person, (education, job, husband, family, friends, home, talents), I become an idolater, trusting in the gifts and not the Giver.

And more...What wrong did your fathers find in me...

What wrong do I find in God? What do I blame Him for? For what am I angry with Him?

...that they went far from me...

And most importantly, am I moving away from Him?

Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Psalm 119:37

Thanks to the God of Mercy and Grace Who, even though I so often chase after worthless things, draws me ever to Him and preserves my life through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.

CONTINUE READING...

Thinking in Bullet Points

• I went to see Angels and Demons while I was at the beach. I haven't read the book, but I really liked the movie. Compared to The Da Vinci Code, which I did read first, it was ten times better. Best quote of the movie?
  
  Cardinal Strauss: Religion is flawed because man is flawed.
  
  Amen.
  
• I went with my work movie buddy "C" to see The Taking of Pelham 123. Awesome movie, if you can take the language. Or am I just getting old? Liked D&A better for the historical point of view, but Pelham is set in the subways of NYC which Matt and I so like to ride when we visit. Country bumpkins come to town and all that.
  
• My mom is doing well...she is almost five weeks out from surgery and saw her cardiologist today. Overall, she's progressing beautifully. Thanks for your prayers, bloggy friends!
  
• My 7-year-old nephew "J" will be here Saturday to stay for two weeks while his older brother and parents are in Austria. (I know, I know...they get Austria and J gets an air mattress at his Aunt B's house! Lucky boy!) Mary and I are lining up some fun things to do together: swim, paint pottery, art lessons, a trip to a friend's farm...hmmm...Mary was even wondering if our friend CD would do a knitting lesson for the two of them...?
  
• My sweet hubby has pulled all the wallpaper (two layers) off the bathroom downstairs, repaired the walls, and painted the ceiling. He's almost ready to paint the walls! The toilet is sitting in our foyer right now, though. It adds a very interesting decorative touch, I think.
  
• I've been in a cleaning-get-rid-of-stuff mood today. I weeded through about half of the hanging clothes in my closet and filled a medium sized bin for Goodwill. It's pathetic how much stuff I have. Then I totally cleaned out the laundry room...it's a collecting place not only for mismatched socks but also for baseball gloves, swim goggles, old purses, shoes, picture frames, canvas bags, coats, belts, school uniforms, vacuum cleaner bags, balls, windshield ice scrapers...you get the idea. I filled a huge black garbage bag and one really big bin for Goodwill. I'm feeling much better and wondering if the mood will continue. I can only hope.
  
• I'm working my way, albeit slowly, through Eugene Peterson's The Jesus Way. I really like him as an author although usually his books are really slow reads for me. Speaking on the life of faith he says:
  
  "We embrace what is given to us - people, spouse, children, forests, weather, city - just as they are given to us, and sit and stare, look and listen until we begin to see and hear the God-dimensions in each gift, and engage with what God has given, with what he is doing. Every time we set out, leaving our self-defined or culture-defined state, leaving behind our partial and immature projects, a wider vista opens up before us, a landscape larger with promise."
  
  Praying for the wisdom to sit and stare, to look and listen. Blessings -
  
  

CONTINUE READING...

A Throne and a Cross

In today's sermon, our pastor quoted a missionary by the name of William Borden (1887-1913) who was the heir to the Borden family fortune (as in Borden Milk, etc.) As a young man, William decided to give all the money and privileges up in order to serve the Lord in China. In route, he stopped to train in Egypt, contracted meningitis, and died within a month. Here's a link to a biography of his short life.

"Say "no" to self, "yes" to Jesus every time.... In every man's heart there is a throne and a cross. If Christ is on the throne, self is on the cross; and if self, even a little bit, is on the throne, Jesus is on the cross in that man's heart. If Jesus is on the throne, you will go where He wants you to go. Jesus on the throne glorifies any work or spot.

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We're Home

We're back from a restful week at the beach. Overall the weather was wonderful and the time was refreshing...but I do have to say I'm glad to be back in my brown house on the hill with my little black puppy!

It's time for a new header for my blog. This is a photo I took the first night we were at Holden Beach from our porch as a storm was rolling in from the south. I thought it would be nice to have a reminder for a month or so of our time away.

I love the beach!

Blessings to my bloggy friends...

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: Autobiography of a Face

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy, Publisher: Harper Perennial (March 18, 2003),
ISBN-10: 0060569662 (first published in 1994)

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: Non-Fiction TBR List for 2009

Over a year ago (I can't find the review on my blog, so it must have been some time ago) I read Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett. It was about Patchett's relationship with another author and poet, Lucy Grealy. Here's a little snippet from School Library Journal:

Patchett first met the poet in college, became her roommate in graduate school, and remained devoted to her through years of artistic, medical, economic, and emotional upheavals. The ties binding these two women included resolve to meet physical adversity with energy and to place friendship beyond the reaches of either habit or convenience.

Patchett's book was wonderful. Moving, insightful, tender. I would rate it a "5", too. After reading Truth and Beauty, I began looking around for a copy of Autobiography of a Face by Patchett's friend, Lucy Grealy. I put it on my Non-Fiction TBR list for this year and read it at the beach this week. It was an incredibly moving story by a very gifted writer.

Here's the summary from Amazon.com:

At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasure of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect.

The thing that struck me the most in this book was how much Grealy wanted to be loved...and how much she felt the lack of love in her life was due to her appearance. I was finishing Frankenstein at the same time I was reading Autobiography and there was a similar thread running through it: Victor Frankenstein's creation wanted so much to be loved and accepted by humans, but because of his grotesque appearance he couldn't find the love he so very much craved. I wouldn't dare compare Grealy's appearance to Frankenstein (although I bet she probably would) but I think her pain of rejection because of her appearance was the same as what Mary Shelley wrote about in Frankenstein. Anyway, it was interesting that I was reading both books at the same time.

I would recommend both of these books: Truth and Beauty and Autobiography of a Face. I would read them in the opposite order than what I did, though. Start with Autobiography and then go to Truth and Beauty. I think I would have understood more fully Patchett's memoir of their friendship if I had read Lucy Grealy's story of her battle with cancer first. Both are great authors.

Click here for Good Words I found in Autobiography of a Face.

CONTINUE READING...

Good Words: Autobiography of a Face

Some Good Words from Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy:

How is it that all of us were caught together in that brief moment of time, me standing there pretending I wasn't hurt by a single thing in this world while they lined up for their turn on the pony...all of them neatly, at my insistence, one in front of the other, like all the days ahead.

Sometimes it is as difficult to know what the past holds as it is to know the future...

The streets in New York City are their own country. A knowledge of them gives one a sense of power. it makes no difference that for the most part New York is a giant grid, supremely traversable compared with such labyrinths as Paris or London. Its power heaves up from the pavement right in front of your eyes, steam escapes in fits and starts as if the whole place were going to blow any minute, people who have already blown apart lie crumpled in its crevasses, and all the while there is a thin promise, a slight wheedling tone, that something important, something drastic, is about to break.

I viewed other people both critically and sympathetically. Why couldn't they just stop complaining so much, just let go and see how good they actually had it? Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen that would allow them to move forward, waiting for some shadowy future moment to be in their lives in earnest. Everybody...was always looking at someone else's life and envying it, wishing to occupy it. I wanted them to stop, to see how much they had already, how they had their health and their strength. I imagine how my life would be if I had half their fortune.

In the right hands, a memoir is the flecks of gold panned out of a great, muddy river. A memoir is those flecks melted down into a shapable liquid that can then be molded and hammered into a single bright band to be worn on a finger, something you could point to and say, "This? Oh, this is my life." Everyone has a muddy river, but very few have the vision, patience, and talent to turn it into something so beautiful. (Ann Patchett in the afterword)

In most ways Lucy had all the ideal elements of a writer: a mastery of language, a poet's touch, a million impassioned ideas, and a strong desire to be heard. (Ann Patchett)

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: The Wind's Twelve Quarters

The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin, Publisher: Harper Perennial (December 14, 2004), ISBN-10: 0060914343

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: 2009 Fiction-I-Own TBR List

I've never read Ursula Le Guin before. Rather, I've never finished anything by her before. I read about a third of The Left Hand of Darkness, and remember liking it, but for some reason I put it down without finishing. It wasn't the type of book you could just pick back up without going all the way back to the beginning.

Liking short stories, I bought this collection at a used book store a year or so ago and put it on one of my TBR lists for this year. I loved it! Well - I didn't love the fantasy stories, but there weren't that many of them in this seventeen story volume...not enough to make me lower my rating! Most were science fiction or psycomyths. I feel like my brain has been stretched and strained, pushed and prodded...but in a very good way....like you feel after a good run or a challenging workout.

These stories were all written (or published) between 1962 and 1974 and the collection was meant to be a "retrospective" - a roughly chronological survey of her short stories during the first ten years after she broke into print. At the beginning of each, Le Guin gives a short introduction usually with a little background to the story and some tidbit about her creative process. I think I enjoyed these introductions as much as the stories themselves.

My two favorite stories were Nine Lives:

Two scientists have been isolated on planet Libra setting up a mining operation. As a final step in their project, a working team arrives - five men and five women - all cloned from the same man to prepare the uranium to be purified and shipped back home. The team is very efficient, but (as you can imagine) a little odd. When nine of the ten are killed in an accident, the only survivor has to learn how to cope with something he has never been exposed to before: loneliness.

and The Field of Vision:

After a visit to a 600 million year old city on Mars, three astronauts experience some strange, and in two cases, devastating effects. One dies on the travel home, one sees things, and the other hears things. After a long struggle, the third astronaut learns to interpret - to make sense - of the sounds he hears. The second understands what he's seeing, but refuses to take part in it and ends up in an insane asylum. The gist is that they are seeing and hearing the world as it really is: all God and everything else inconsequential.

I would definitely recommend this book and look forward to reading more of Le Guin's work.

Some Good Words I found:

As far as we know, which is a tiny corner of dusty space under the rafters of the universe, all the people we've run into are in fact human.

Life loves to know itself, out to its furthest limits; to embrace complexity is its delight. Our difference is our beauty.

We all have forests in our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone. (From the introduction to Vaster Than Empires and More Slow)

There was not room enough for the cultivation of so great a thing, and they must make do with sympathy, with pity, the small change of love.

A great, great description:

The toes, compressed by a lifetime of cheap shoes, were almost square where they touched each other, and bulged out above in corns; the nails were discolored and shapeless. Between the knob-like anklebones ran fine, dry wrinkles. The brief little plain at the base of the toes had kept its delicacy, but the skin was the color of mud, and knotted veins crossed the instep. Disgusting. Sad, depressing. Mean. Pitiful. She tried on all the words, and they all fit like hideous little hats. Hideous: yes, that one too.

A proper body's not an object, not an implement, no a belonging to be admired, it's just you, yourself. Only when it's no longer you, but yours, a thing owned, do you worry about it - Is it in good shape? Will it do? Will it last?

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: Olive Kitteridge

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 30, 2008), ISBN-10: 0812971833

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner

A friend told me she had checked this book out at the library and thought we should read it together while we were at the beach this week. I went by the library and picked up the second copy. Now, after taking a day to read through this collection of 13 short stories, I want to own it. It was that good. Probably in my top ten list now. Sometimes prize winners disappoint and leave you thinking, "Huh?" but I can absolutely see why this book was recognized as great literature.

All of the stories are connected by an unforgettable character: Olive Kitteridge - unlikabley likable. It's hard to explain how she gets under your skin from the beginning. I disliked her, liked her, loved her. She taught me a lot about growing old, being a mother and wife, being a friend. The stories are all set in a small coastal town in Main and revolve around the people of the community. Olive appears (or is mentioned) in all of them, but is often not the main character. Still her personality shines through.

My favorite is probably Winter Concert, a sweet story of an elderly couple going to a concert on a winter's night (Olive and her husband sit a few rows in front of them.) The wife is confronted with her husband's repetitive infidelity and the hurt it causes plus her response to her husband are moving and unforgettable. Actually, the whole book is unforgettable and emotionally powerful.

Read this book. Really.

Check out the Good Words I found in Olive Kitteridge here.

And here's a couple of articles on the book: Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times.

CONTINUE READING...

Good Words: Olive Kitteridge

Some Good Words I found in Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout:

And any unpleasantness that may have occurred back in his home, any uneasiness at the way his wife often left their bed to wander through their home in the night's dark hours - all this receded like a shoreline as he walked through the safety of his pharmacy.

For many years Mrs. Granger worked for him; her husband was a lobster fisherman, and she seemed to carry with her the cold breeze of the open water, not so eager to please a wary customer.

But Denise was not his daughter, and he told her it was noble to be a homemaker - vaguely aware of the freedom that accompanied caring for someone with whom you shared no blood.

He felt the stain of some sadness make its way from her to him.

Twenty-two years...but for Angie time was as big and round as the sky, and to try to make sense of it was like trying to make sense of music and God and why the ocean was deep.

Eventually the feeling went away because others came along. Or sometimes it didn't go away but got squeezed into something tiny, and hung like a piece of tinsel in the back of your mind.

When you looked into his eyes, it was like seeing him through a screened-in porch.

...that one of those things about getting older was knowing that so many moments weren't just moments, they were gifts.

The natural rubber band around people's lives that curiosity stretched for a while had long ago returned to encompass their own particularities.

One and a half years later, this still squeezed Olive so hard she felt like a package of vacuum-packed coffee...

"Are you feeling poorly again?"
He smiled that tiny smile. "Only soul poor. The body hangs on."
She nodded.

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Book Review: Home Life

Home Life: A Journey Through Rooms and Recollections by Suzanne Fox, Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Printing edition (September 4, 1997), ISBN-10: 0684835177

Rating: 4 of 5 STARS
Source: Randomly picked up...somewhere!

This is a memoir with a clever delivery. Fox uses the homes in which she has lived - along with certain types of rooms - to tell the story of her life. At the time of writing this book, I believe she was in her thirties and living alone in a very small apartment in New York City. She made 300 square feet sound blissful!

From Booklist: "While some memoirs reek of self-involvement, this one invites the reader in: to her parents' suburban home in New Jersey; to an artistically shabby pension in Paris; to a friend's sun-drenched California guest room where there was, almost literally, a monster hidden."

Things I marked:

Some symbols have too much significance; rather than inspiring dreams, they are dispiriting high-water marks, against which real experience always comes up short.

As I finally let Doctor Zhivago show me, the foreignness of another place or another soul can't really be inhabited. It can only be lost: because you leave it or because, as you stay on, time dilutes its strangeness with familiarity and brings you home again.

Fox has challenged me to look more closely at all the places I have lived. A good read.

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Book Review: Frankenstein

Frankenstein (The Whole Story Edition) by Mary Shelley, publisher: Viking Juvenile (August 1, 1998), ISBN-10: 0670878014

Rating: 2 of 5 STARS
Source: 2009 Fiction-I-Own List

I've had this classic on my list for some time to read and am glad to check it off my list. I think I bought the Whole Story edition of Frankenstein at a conference when I was teaching at a classical Christian school a few years ago. I'd never read this classic and figured (rightly so) that I would struggle with the "Victorian-style" writing. So - this edition caught my eye. There were lots of additional information to help the reader understand some references that might not be so obvious to the modern reader. I think it's geared toward teachers. The extra notes, drawings, biographical sketches, etc. were helpful.

But, alas, I still didn't like it. I ended up scanning a good bit of the second half and was glad to be finished with it. I liked the story - the idea - but really didn't enjoy the writing itself. Plus, it was easy to see the atheistic worldview from Shelley, even though she couldn't help but have her main character cry out several times to his "guiding spirit." Not sure what that would mean coming from an atheist.

On a positive note, it is amazing that Shelley wrote this at age eighteen. The notes kept referring to some rumors that her famous poet husband, Percy, had helped her write the novel, though.

On another positive note, the story Victor Frankenstein's "monster" tells of trying to find love and acceptance was very moving. It links well to another book I just finished to be reviewed shortly: Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy.

I noticed that there's a Frankenstein movie by Hallmark available for free on our Direct TV service. I think I'll try to watch it when we get home. Like I said, I liked the story, just not the writing. Maybe the movie will be better.

Can't say that I would recommend this one, but if you have to read it, the Whole Story edition might be helpful.

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At the Beach!!

Sorry to have been so quiet...we're at the beach this week...ahhh....I keep thinking, "Oh, I ought to write about that" or "I ought to write about this" but then I never seem to get around to it...you know, the naps, sitting at the beach, reading, and reading...and reading some more!


The photo above is from the back deck of the house we're staying at this week as a storm began to move in one evening. Lovely, huh?

And here's some photos of the master chefs as they worked super hard yesterday making an absolutely superb shrimp creole. Yum!

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Book Review: Christ, My Companion

Christ, My Companion: Meditations on the Prayer of St. Patrick by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre, Publisher: Baker Books (August 1, 2008), ISBN-10: 0801071593

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: Author of previous book read (Color of Light)

I read a volume of McEntyre's poems not too long ago and fell in love with her writing. Looking her up on Amazon, I found that in addition to a few other volumes of poems, she had recently written a small devotion book on the Prayer of St. Patrick. When I went home to Louisiana, I dropped by the Books-A-Million there and they just so happened to have one in stock! So, I started reading a chapter every night before going to bed. Her words were a great comfort to me.

From the back cover:

Christ be with me, Christ within me, Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me, Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me, Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

Where can I flee from your presence? Christ promises to be with you always. Yet how often do you feel misunderstood, scared, and abandoned? In the much beloved "St. Patrick's Prayer," the patron saint of Ireland passionately invokes the ways Christ is present to us. Inspired by this litany, Marilyn Chandler McEntyre shares her contemporary reflections on St. Patrick's ancient, yet timeless, prayer. Her thirteen deeply devotional meditations take you on a journey through Christ's love for you.

It was a lovely book, with much to glean. I've put Christ, My Companion on my list of devotion books to repeat. A poet at heart, she quotes some of my favorites: Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Francis Thompson, George Herbert, John Donne, Wendell Berry, Mary Oliver. There's also some tie-ins to great literature and theology: the Nicene Creed, Herman Melville, Virginia Wolf, C.S. Lewis, and the Heidelberg Catechism. There's more, but that's enough to give you the idea.

She's also included questions for reflection on each chapter. These weren't just add-on's but really give you more to think and pray about after each chapter. They also make this a good book to read with a friend, small group, or Sunday School class.

Here's an excerpt or two:

"This is part of what it means to pray without ceasing: to listen for God - in ordinary encounters, to listen for the word we need to hear, the invitation, the correction, even though the person through whom it comes may be quite unaware that he or she is serving as a messenger. Listening for God is the ground of obedience. The word obey comes from a Latin word that means to listen. In listening for the voice of Christ, we obey his call." (From the chapter on "Christ in Mouth of Friend and Stranger.")

"In the meantime, which is where we live, what we have to work with is each other. God works in the very people who challenge and limit and correct me, who irritate and delight and surprise me. They are the ones through whose hearts the love of Christ is reflected and refracted, bent and broken into a prism of possibilities, warming my own heart and keeping it open." (From the chapter on "Christ in Hearts of All That Love Me.")

My good friend M sent me McEntyre's poems on Vermeer's paintings (In Quiet Light) that I'm savoring right now. This is definitely an author I'll add to my list of favorites.

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Hound of Heaven and Easter Day

I love Francis Thompson's poem The Hound of Heaven. The image of God chasing me down "the nights and days", "the arches of the years", and "the labyrinthine ways of my own mind" rings so very true to me.

I've been studying the poem and meditating on some of the Biblical truths Thompson puts forth along with doing a little research to learn more about the poem's interpretation, Thompson's background, etc.

One resource said that The Hound of Heaven, written in 1889, was a counterpart to Robert Browning's poem Easter Day written in 1850. I had never heard of this poem but apparently it chronicles a soul who, instead of being chased unrelentingly by God as in The Hound, is allowed to choose the lesser good of earthly beauty for its home. This soul is allowed to joyfully give itself over to the finest things earth can give - life, literature, scientific knowledge, and love. But soon, eternity becomes too long for the earth and all it has to offer. The desire for mortality ages and the soul grows weary. The soul, designed for the eternal and immortal, finds itself a prisoner to that which decays and descends into doom. But at the poem's close, the soul finally awakens to the blessedness of not being satisfied with anything the earth can give. It recognizes the only thing that can make it truly happy is the eternal God.

I found Browning's Easter Day poem online. I haven't read it yet as it's very long, but I plan to. The comparison is intriguing...There's the God Thompson portrays as a great soul-hunter, relentlessly chasing us no matter where we run. And then there's the God Browning's poem describes as One who allows a soul to choose its course, and then uses rejection to eventually bring it back to Himself.

I recognize both patterns working in my life. Yes, God has chased me through the years. But He has also sat back and allowed me to make choices that seemed possible to only lead away from Him...yet they have ultimately brought me right back to the foot of His throne.

He's pretty amazing like that.

Jeremiah 23:23-24
"Am I a God at hand, declares the LORD, and not a God far away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.

Luke 19:9-10
And Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."

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Crafty Balloons!

We started on balloon flip flops yesterday.....and finished today.

...Then Mary and her friend J made a balloon door for her bedroom today out of the extras. :-)

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