I haven't kept up with blogging, but I still write down everything I read, and I want to post it here. I like looking back over my book lists from time to time, and it's nice to have to short descriptions to remind me what the book was about and why I liked it. So here goes again!

Books since 2014

Tarjei Vesaas: The Birds, 1957. Translated from Norwegian by Torbjørn Støverud and Michael Barns, 1969. A sweet and sad book about a mentally retarded man who lives with his sister. The sister has always protected her brother until she unexpectedly falls in love. The story is told from the perspective of the brother and captures well the emotional turmoil he lives in.

Vladimir Vertlib: Zwischenstationen, 2005. I think this must be an autobiographical novel, but I don’t know that for sure. In any case, the protagonist is a Russian Jew who left Russia in the early 70s with his parents when he was five years old to try to find a place to live without persecution. The family lived for short periods in Austria, Israel (twice), The Netherlands, Italy, and the US, before finally settling once again in Austria. The father is the driving force for this wandering, and it is interesting to see how the son and the mother come to terms with it. A lively, funny, entertaining and heartbreaking representation of a chaotic migrant story.

Irena Korschunow: Er hieß Jan, 1979. A truly charming book about a love affair between a German girl and a Polish man in Nazi Germany. Written for young people, this was the text we used in a 300-level German course I recently taught. This book has a special place in my heart because of its sweet story and the role it played in my understanding of myself as a teacher.

Elisabeth Gaskell: North and South, 1855. A “social novel”, Gaskell is my new favorite bedtime author. Her books are long and slow, just perfect for reading in bed and getting sleepy. Not a lot happens, but the couple that’s meant to be together gets together in the end. Netflix has a great adaptation of the novel in four installments.

John Williams: Stoner, 1965. A really depressing story about the life of a college professor. Stoner is the name of the English professor who never really quite makes it professionally and certainly not personally but nevertheless has moments of happiness in his sad, dreary life. The sordidness and pettiness of the academic life is a main theme, and boy can I relate to that.

Elizabeth Taylor: A Game of Hide and Seek, 1951. This is the English author, not the American actress Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor is supposed to be a very good novelist, but this novel was terrible. I usually don’t finish things I don’t like, but I kept thinking this would get better since I read what a good writer Taylor is. The problem wasn’t the writing—it was the characters. There was nothing interesting or attractive about them. A young woman and a young man like each other but both are “duds” in their way and never manage to make much of their lives or even to get together.

Robert Seethaler: Der Trafikant, 2012. A young Austrian man from the countryside goes to Vienna in the 1930s when Hitler is in power and is in the process of annexing Austria. The young man works in a newsstand (“Trafikant”) and witnesses and experiences the Nazi violence and terror. Sigmund Freud is one of his customers, and he and the young man become friends. Like the other Seethaler novel I read (Ein ganzes Leben), the power of the book is getting immersed in the main character’s life and milieu, but this one is way better. At least, I enjoyed the story telling here and felt like I understood the character and his struggles.

Charles Marsh: Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 2014. This is a must-read for anyone interested in German history. So much has been written about Bonhoeffer that it’s hard to believe there could have been anything more to write, but there apparently was. Marsh narrates this biography beautifully—it reads like a novel but is a solid academic work. I didn’t want it to end.

Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford. I forgot that I already read this! I blogged about it here.

Sherman Alexie: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, 2006. Written for young people, I read, but this is for anyone. Alexie grew up on a reservation near Spokane and went on to become a well-respected author. His writing is funny but true, very poignant. This is a bitter-sweet tale based on Alexie’s childhood; there’s lots of trauma but also lots of good.

Daniel Kehlmann: Ruhm, 2014. I loved the last book I read by this author and was disappointed with this one. It is a series of short stories in which the characters all end up being connected to one another in various ways. The stories were clever enough, but the connection angle was not clever at all. I didn’t really understand why that needed to be in there, and I would have liked this better had I thought I was just reading a collection of short stories.

E.M. Delafield: Faster! Faster!, 1936. There are many wonderful English women writers and E.M. Delafield is one of them. This story about a strong woman who is a wife and mother and who runs a company in London seems way ahead of its time in so many ways. Or maybe we just think women didn’t do all these things before our times? In any case, the story is seems like it could be a modern tale; the worries of the stressed main character and her fate are told in an engrossing way, and the many questions about life and work and children that come up are ones we struggle with now.

Dezsö Kosztolányi: Skylark, 1920? Translated from Hungarian by Richard Aczel, 2010. Turn of the century novels from Austro-Hungarian writers fascinate me. The culture of the Empire with its many ethnicities is complex and layered, yet the writers do share a way of looking at the world. This novel tells the story of a simple family—a  father, a mother, and a grown daughter—who all must live together with the disappointment of their failed dreams. The writing is detailed, rich, humorous and engaging; the story is sad but not depressing.

Joe Simpson: Touching the Void, 1988. Not at all well written but still a great story, it’s about the true experience of two mountain climbers in Peru. They are tied together when one of them falls from the ledge in an icy storm and the other one has to eventually cut the rope and leave his friend behind, not knowing if he’s dead or alive but assuming the worst. Unbelievably, the friend, gravely injured and with no food or water, climbs out of the crevasse and makes it back to camp over three grueling days, minutes before his partner was about to leave. Greg and I saw the reenacted documentary of this story a while back and when I happened upon the book, I had to read it.

R.K. Narayan: Waiting for the Mahatma, 1955. A young man joins the group around Gandhi because he falls in love with a woman who is close to Gandhi and is an ardent follower. The young man is very immature and spoiled and doesn’t seem to learn very much along the way, but he stays in the group and endures the hardships for this woman. She, on the other hand, lives the teachings of Gandhi and stays true to her values. The book is written with amazing, delightful irony—we are meant, I think, to wonder about the whole Gandhi movement. Yet, in the end, the light shines through, and we, and the protagonist, come to understand something we didn’t know before. Can you tell I loved this book?

Helen Fielding: Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy, 2013. A light, enjoyable read, not as good as the original Bridget Jones, but still laugh-out-loud funny! Bridget finds herself a single mother after her wonderful Mr. Darcy unexpectedly dies and has to go on to find her guy again. The scrapes she gets herself in are hilarious. She shows growth and maturity since her last adventures, but she still remains quite a character.

Barack Obama: Dreams for my Father, 1995. I kept wondering if Obama had help writing this, but it doesn’t appear he did. It’s really well written and gives a lot of insight into his psychological make-up. He is a strong person, due to wonderful support from his mother certainly, but mainly from his grandparents. This is interesting if you like Obama and want to know more about him. I hope he writes some more about his life (probably a work about his presidency is being planned).

Blake Eskin: A Life in Pieces: The Making and Unmaking of Binjamin Wilkomirski, 2002. I stumbled on this work in the process of translating an article about Binjamin Wilkomirski by Noemi Schneider. Wilkomirski wrote a memoir of the time he spent in concentration camps as a child (called Fragments), but it turns out he made up the whole story. The memoir was a huge sensation when it came out (1995), and the author won several literary prizes and traveled a great deal and gave talks about the work. Naturally, it was a big scandal when the hoax was discovered. Eskin’s book details the story and the man in absorbing prose, weaving in his own family history, since he first met Wilkomirski at a family event, thinking he was a distant cousin (Eskin’s maternal great-grandmother was a Wilkomirski). I really enjoyed this book—it was like reading a mystery.

Daniel Brown: The Boys in the Boat, 2013.  A great American tale about the 1936 Olympic rowing team, a group of students from the University of Washington. Of course, they were the underdogs who came out ahead and won the race! The book is well-researched and very engaging.

Elizabeth Gaskell: Ruth, 1853. This story of a “fallen woman” must have been quite shocking for its time. Unfortunately, the character of Ruth is a passive victim who becomes a Madonna-like figure after her she is abandoned by her lover and sees the error of her ways, which makes this tale not as interesting as other Gaskell novels (North and South is my all time favorite), but it was a good choice for night reading.

If you read any of these and want to tell me what you thought, I'd love to hear from you. Or if you want to tell me what you're reading, you can let me know that too (juliemwinter6@gmail.com). 

Cute Dog Picture and Books

Chris took Beau along with him recently on one of his long bike rides. In case you can't see it well, Beau is wearing his sweater I knit him a while ago--it was a cold day!

Here's a round up of books I've been reading since the last book posting:

Jhumpa Lahiri: Unaccustomed Earth, 2008. A collection of longish short stories, usually about Indians living in the US. The writing exactly captures the characters’ situations, motivations and emotions—it’s easy to get lost in the world each story creates. This is lovely, lovely writing, and I will definitely read more by this author.

Margaret Drabble: The Millstone, 1965. Drabble belongs to the group of “witty British female writers,” and she is wonderful. This is the story of a single, working academic mom in the 1960s, before being that was well accepted. It’s hard to put this one down because you get immediately involved and want to see where it’s all going. I will also read more by this author.

Ari Shavit: My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, 2013. I wanted to know more about Israel, and this was recommended to me. It is a very personal story about Israel’s history and reason for being. The author, born and raised in Israel, is a thoughtful Zionist who struggles with the brutal and aggressive way that Zionism plays out. Sometimes the writing is repetitive, but I didn’t mind that too much, and I learned a lot from reading this book.

Bigit Vanderbeke: Das Muschelessen, 1990. This story is told from the perspective of a teenaged girl in a family from East Germany, now living in the West, with a domineering and boorish father figure. It is probably meant to be a metaphor for the East German state, but it is nonetheless absolutely hilarious, sad and brilliant! It has recently been translated into English as The Mussel Feast.

Joseph Roth: Hiob, 1930. Roth tells the story of a modern day Job. His Eastern European Job lives around the turn of the 19^th century in Russia and immigrates to New York City. He has to bear unbearable tragedies and loses his faith in God until the miracle at the end. The thing about Roth is that he is a marvelous storyteller, and his prose has a mesmerizing rhythm. I think some English translations do capture this. This is my second reading of this book, and the effect was the same each time. I cried tears of joy as I read the ending, even though it’s not mystery how it will turn out!

Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island, 1883. I haven't read a lot of this sort of classic literature, so I thought I should try it. I actually enjoyed this a lot—it’s an exciting story about a young boy who goes along on a treasure hunting expedition and has to fight pirates on the island to win the booty. 

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein, 1816. Mary Shelley was so young when she wrote this—one wonders how she knew the things she did. I found myself writing down memorable passages a lot during the reading of this classic tale, like this one: “Alas! Why does man boast of sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might nearly be free, but we are moved by every wind that blows, and a chance word or scene that word may convey to us.”

Volker Weidermann: Ostende: 1936. Sommer der Freundschaft, 2014. Brilliant and wonderful writers were exiled early on during the Hitler years, and several of them were good friends and met each other regularly, often at Ostende, a seaside resort in Belgium. Especially Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth kept up their friendship for a long time and spent a productive summer in 1936 together at this resort. This is a historical novel, based on letters, journals and biographies of these famous authors. It is fascinating to read if you like these authors and this period and perhaps also if you don’t but want to know more about them and this time period.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera, 1985. Well-written and beautifully translated by Edith Grossman, so precise, but I don't love it. The characters seem like caricatures and it's hard to relate to them. 

Stefan Zweig: Schachnovelle, 1936. I read this before and already wrote about it here.

It was still great the second time through!

Robert Seethaler: Ein ganzes Leben, 2014. This novel tells about the life of a simple man living in a mountain village in Austria from about 1900 to about 1970. He experiences both World Wars and monumental changes and modernization that took place in the early to mid-twentieth century. The man remains oddly unchanged or unaffected by his experiences. I think I missed the point of this, although the reading was pleasant and interesting enough.

Joseph Roth: Radetzskymarsch. This is a long and rambling tale about the decline of a family and the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At times Roth’s storytelling genius shines through, but often the writing seems repetitive and the plot is predictable. It is considered one of Roth’s great novels, but Hiob is so much better (imho). Of course, Hiob is also predictable, but the mesmerizing writing really makes it a page-turner.

Helen Dunmore: The Lie, 2014. A World War I story about a young man who returns to his village in England after serving as a soldier along with his best friend from childhood. The friend dies in battle, and the protagonist is wracked with survivor guilt. We learn about their friendship growing up, and there is also a story going on in which the young man is living a lie. It surprised me that this turned out to primarily be a ghost story. It is definitely worth reading, but there were some disappointments. I don’t want to say too much more! If you read it and want to talk about it, let me know!

Iris Murdoch: Under the Net, 1959. This is Murdoch’s first book. She went on to write many more of them. I thought she would be in the category of “witty British female writers,” and she is, but she is a pretty dense writer, unlike the others. I mean this is not light literature at all, and the wit is very subtle. The book was about a 30-something writer who was not working very seriously and kept getting side-tracked by his outlandish adventures. It’s a Bildungsroman, and the young man does eventually find himself and his calling. I liked it a lot.

A Rather Long Book Update

Bossy Pants by Tina Fey (2011). I really admire Tina Fey—she is so smart and so funny! I was curious to read what she wrote about herself and her life, but I was a bit disappointed that she didn’t seem so funny in this form (although still smart). What is really interesting to me about this book is that Fey managed to write an autobiography while not revealing very much about herself.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain (2000). Now here’s a guy who knows how to write about himself. The traveling chef star comes across just as he does on his TV shows—very clever and self-centered but surprisingly not conceited. This book about Bourdain’s career as a chef and about the way things really are in restaurant kitchens is well written, interesting and entertaining.

Rausch der Verwandlung by Stefan Zweig (1982).  This novel is set in post WWI Austria where things are very difficult for people in the lower and rural classes. A young woman’s dreary life is quickly changed when her rich aunt invites her to spend time vacationing with her in an exclusive resort in the Alps. The young woman discovers how the other half lives, and how much is denied to her due to her class, a discovery that makes it impossible to go back to her normal life afterwards. The style of writing and the story really pull you into this book.

This has been translated into English as The Post Office Girl; a literal translation of the title is something like “intoxication of the transformation.”

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (1945). What a wonderful discovery this author is! She reminds me of Barbara Pym but is funnier and also bleaker. This is a story about a family belonging to the vanishing British upper class and about one member’s search for love. It’s beautiful and heart-breaking.

A Family Madness by Thomas Keneally (1985). Set in modern Australia (where the author is from), the main character falls in love with the daughter of a crazy Belorussian immigrant. The author skillfully goes back and forth between the events of the current time told from the protagonist’s perspective and the history of the Belorussian and his family in WWII under Nazi rule, told through letters and diaries. It’s all made up, but the historical details concerning Belorussian collaboration with the Nazis are true and very unsettling. I learned a lot about this topic from reading this book.

Going Home Again by Dennis Bock (2013). A story about a man who is living through a painful separation from his wife and daughter in Madrid, who decides for professional reasons to “go home again” to Canada. There he encounters his past, his former love, and his estranged brother, who wants to make amends. I like the amazon.com blurb about this book: “Masterfully rendered and deeply felt, Going Home Again is a beautiful exploration of the unexpected contours of life.” I think so too.

Unwiederbringlich by Theodor Fontane (1891).  A count from Schleswig Holstein and his rather critical wife are having marital troubles when the count is called to Denmark (where he is a member of the Danish court) to keep the princess company. He has an affair while there, with disastrous results for his marriage. The title could be translated as “Irretrievable,” so you can imagine what happens. The novel is long and rambling and very 19^th century, just the way I like them.

Weeds Like Us by Gunther Nitsch (2006). I read a lot of stuff that a lot of people might not like (see above), so I usually don’t recommend things to others to read. This book is an exception. It’s an absolutely engrossing first-person account of what happened to the Germans of East Prussia who were forced to live under Russian rule after 1945. The book has literary weaknesses, but the story makes it worth reading, and the author does tell a good story. If you are at all interested in WWII, Germans, Germany, or the fate of refugees, or if you just like a good survival story, read this book!

Stretch: Coming of Age in Post-War Germany by Gunther Nitsch (2010). This is the continuation of the above story about the author’s life after the family managed to get out of East Prussia. It’s not as good as Weeds Like Us, but I had to read it to see what happened next.

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (2013). Harold and Maureen have been married a very long time, and things are not going very well anymore. Harold has recently retired and does very little with himself; his wife is critical and unhappy. One day, Harold spontaneously starts on a long walk across England to see a former friend and co-worker who is dying of cancer. This should have been good, and I did want to read more to see what would happen, but it was, all in all, very disappointing. I found it trite and predictable—two weaknesses that ultimately spell the failure of a story.

Die Vermessung der Welt by Daniel Kehlmann (2009). (English: Measuring the World: A Novel). This is another must read! I guess this would be called historical fiction…it’s about the German mathematician and scientist Carl Friedrich Gauß and the scientist and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Both were eccentric geniuses, and the author positively delights in describing their lives and personalities in a humorous way, yet filled with awe at their undertakings and abilities. Style is everything in this novel. In German, the story is told almost completely in “indirect speech,” which gives the reader the feeling that they are there, listening to the dialogue, and also lends an air of quaintness to the writing.

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann (1901). The book portrays the decline of the wealthy Buddenbrook family in a hanseatic city in northern Germany in the late 19^th century. Not a lot happens—the fun of the novel is Mann’s character development and, of course, his famous irony.

Book Update September 2013

L'Assommoir by Emil Zola (1877).  A friend and I who have similar reading tastes are doing an online book club sort of thing. We both love late 19th, early 20th century fiction, especially by German authors.  My friend introduced me to the French author Zola, and I have been hooked. His novels, written in the "naturalism" style, are bleak, but the characters are fascinating. Zola's characters don't learn anything in the course of the story (which is why the stories are bleak). Instead, they act true to themselves to the bitter end.

This story is about the problem of drinking in the lower classes of Paris and the destruction it wrought. Interestingly, the title of this novel is usually not translated. "L'Assommoir" is the name of a typical, cheap drinking establishment of the time.

Across Islands and Oceans: A Journey Alone around the World by Sail and by Foot by James Baldwin (2012). In the 1980s Baldwin, only in his 20s, sailed alone around the world in a very simple boat, using no navigation technology. He didn't even have a radio on board. He stopped at various islands along the way and hiked across them. The story is told well, and this is an absorbing, enjoyable book.

Yoram by Ulrike Kolb (2012).  A story about a relationship between a German Jewish man and a German woman who meet in the eighties, when Germany is trying to move away from its past and its guilt. The difficulties of this situation are played out in the relationship of the two characters. It is done so skillfully and in such a gripping way that the reading is never trite or clichéd. I love this book!

Nana by Emil Zola (1880). Yes, another Zola! Nana is the name of the daughter of the main character in L'Assommoir. Nana represents all the excesses of Paris in the late nineteenth century. She comes to ruin, of course.

Weep Not, Child by Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1964). Ngugi is a prolific Kenyan author who has written a lot about the oppression of his people by British colonists. This is a work of fiction, but it draws heavily on the author's experiences as a child, when he and his family witnessed and participated in the struggle for independence. It is told simply and eloquently and is very moving. Ngugi is often a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he has not yet won the award.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy (1994). Grealy, a poet who died at a relatively young age not too long ago, had cancer in her jaw as a child. The operation to remove it greatly disfigured her, and numerous surgeries to try to reconstruct her face failed.  Here she tells her story, and it is a difficult one to read. But the writing doesn't get bogged down in sadness, and the author does ultimately come to terms with her fate.

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama (2007). A very light novel, great for reading during long layovers at airports. The lives of two brothers who grow up during WWII in Japan are chronicled here. One brother becomes a sumo wrestler, the other a Noh mask carver. What I found most interesting about this book was the description of what it was like for ordinary Japanese to live through the bombings and the long periods without food and supplies during the war.

Books from 2012

Paradise Valley, MT, November 2012. Photo by Greg Winter

The Sermon on the Mount by Emmet Fox (1934). A classic and a must read for anyone interested in the teachings of Jesus. The interpretation is surprisingly secular, similar to New Age thinking and Eastern philosophy and thus easier to understand and accept than the traditional fire and brimstone interpretations so widespread in the US. Fox was a leader in New Thought, a movement influenced by the American Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_New_Thought).

Flirting with Mermaids by John Kretschmer (1991). Another sailing book, this one a bit goofy and certainly not good literature! I enjoyed reading it though because it's written by a guy who sails yachts to various destinations all over the world for a living, and Chris was doing just that at the time. (Chris and Jo helped sail a private yacht across the Atlantic to the Azores this past summer.)

Tschick by  Wolfgang Herrndorf (2010). Simply a good old fashioned story about a fourteen year old boy and his friend, a recent Russian immigrant to Germany, who is the protagonist's age but has wisdom beyond his years and life experience to add to the mix. The boys get into lots of trouble and learn a lot about life and growing up in the process. This is funny, intense, entertaining and enlightening.

Seven Years by Peter Stamm, trans. Michael Hofmann (2010). I got to read this because I volunteered again this year to help with the judging for the National Translation Award. This is ultimately a mood piece, I think, to be read for the writing and the nuance described in the chronicling of the main character's relationship with his wife. However, it is definitely worth reading for the story, lest you think there isn't much going on there. I thought this translation had a good chance of winning the award: when I compared it to the original German, I felt the translator had exactly captured the mood and tone.

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (2006). I would have thought this was schlock, but it's actually very good. The author chronicles her struggles to overcome a depression after her divorce and to learn to meditate. The writing is entertaining, and the researched parts are outstanding. At times I found her bit of smugness here and there annoying, but it wasn't enough to make me put the book down. I would never ever go see the movie of this--the book is too good.

Oblivion by Hector Abad, trans. Anne McLean and Rosalind Harvey (2010).  A heart breaking memoir about the author's father, a doctor, intellectual and social activist in Columbia during the peak of the political turmoil in the seventies and eighties. There is no spoiler here--we already know at the beginning that this man, committed to helping fellow Columbians in issues of health, poverty, and education, will be shot to death on the street by his own government. Abad gives us a portrait of his father, his relationship to him, and of his whole family, and furthermore lets us experience growing up in Medillin and the nature of the political violence that all Columbians had to live with. Mario Vargas Llosa, quoted on Amazon, says it well; the book is "one of the most eloquent arguments written in our time or any time against terror as an instrument of political action.”

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (1838-39). You know how I love these long, drawn out nineteenth century English novels! Dickens is a really fun writer to read because he is just so clever. The stories are good, but it's his cleverness that gets me every time. When I compare him to Trollope, whom I absolutely adore (as you know), I have to admit that although they are both marvelous story tellers, Dickens is better. His social critique and his characters are always right on target.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (2004). This is one of those books that makes you wonder continually while reading, "How does he do this?" The novel consists of six stories, each told in the first person by characters of different ages, nationalities, and time periods, yet all six stories relate to each other and make the novel a whole.  The author is able to become each one of his characters, and the result is completely convincing. Reviews say that this is a "puzzle book" in which the reader has to figure out how the stories and characters relate. If I had tried to do that, it would have driven me crazy. I enjoyed the fantastic story-telling and the astonishing literary quality. Later on, the connections became clearer.

Winter Books

The Long Way by Bernard Moitessier (1974), translated by William Rodarmor. Moitessier is perhaps the most famous sailor of modern times. A Frenchman born in Vietnam, he participated in the solo race around the world in 1968, but after circumnavigating the world once, decided to keep going. Thus, he dropped out of the race; no one knows for sure whether he would have won had he stayed in. He was more than a free spirit, it seems; he completely rebelled against societal constraints and devoted himself to sailing. This is a bit of a cult book, I suppose, and it is not particularly well-written, but I find these personal accounts of highly creative people spellbinding. I just read on Wikipedia that his boat, Joshua, has been restored and now sits in my birthplace, La Rochelle, France.

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1872). Some of you may know that I’ve been a Trollope fan since first reading his The Eustace Diamonds back in the nineties, and I’ve actually read this novel once before. (If you think you’d like to read Trollope, start with The Eustace Diamonds.) Greg and I recently saw the PBS adaptation of The Way We Live Now, and it made me want to re-read the novel. Trollope is a sharp and witty observer of human nature (similar to Dickens), and here he satirizes the greed of the well-to-do in England, but he does it by telling a great story and by fostering our sympathy with his characters, in spite of their many flaws.

The Seven Laws of Spiritual Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra (1994). Well, yes. Ahem. I am trying to figure things out these days, and this book was recommended to me as a place to start. There was a time I couldn’t read such “New Age hocus pocus,” but now I understand better where its proponents are coming from and what they are trying to say. This author has made a lot of money on books and speeches about finding inner peace and getting what you want out of life, which would seem that he is profiting on our angst with what is essentially his distillation and interpretation of Buddhist thought. So be it. I think he has some good and important things to say, but I do find the attempt to make complicated things seem simple rather annoying. Still, I liked the book.

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel (2007).  We saw the movie first, which made me want to read the book. Both the movie and the book are genuinely fascinating accounts of John Harrison, a carpenter and watchmaker, who figured out how to measure longitude, a problem that had stumped sailors for centuries and made sea voyages treacherous and even lethal. It was not uncommon that captains of ships miscalculated their positions at sea, because of their inability to calculate longitude, and crashed their boats into rocks, killing all aboard. This story is one of those that make you realize how much we take for granted with all our modern technology. How in the world did all those sailors make it home before they knew how to calculate longitude?

Thérèse Raquin by Emil Zola (1867), translated by Robin Buss. This was the first time I’ve read a book by Zola, and it blew me away. It is so modern that it’s eerie. I think it’s modern in that the story is full of raw human emotions—lust, guilt, hate, aggression—described by the author in painstaking, lurid detail. Zola goes on for pages about the nature of the various emotional states of the main characters, and you believe him.  I can just see the awful graphic, violent movie of this story. It is extremely absorbing, like a modern crime novel that you can’t put down and also very disturbing. I want to read more Zola, but I need some time first to come to terms with Thérèse Raquin.

Deep Winter

Family: Conrad is home for the Christmas weekend, and Chris has been living at home since he got back from his South Pacific adventure in the fall, so we are all together for Christmas. It's the first time we've all been together during the holidays for three years. Our friend Karen is here with us too!

Book News: Here's the link to a book notice I wrote that was just published by the electronic journal of the Linguistic Society of America called eLanguage:

http://www.elanguage.net/blogs/booknotices/?p=1915 I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Summer Reading

We've had a busy summer, but I've still managed to get a lot of reading in. I hope I can add some posts soon about our summer trips and activities, but in the meantime, here's my book news:

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson, 2008.  I enjoyed reading this a lot, just as I enjoyed Three Cups of Tea. Of course I was unhappy to hear that Greg Mortenson probably exaggerated some of the material or maybe even lied about it. It was such a cool story and so inspirational—building schools instead of dropping bombs in Afghanistan. I do hope that he really did build some schools and that some kids are benefitting from his efforts.

A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols, 1997. An exciting, well-written, true story about the first sail boat race around the world in 1968, attempted by 9 sailors. One of the race participants was Donald Crowhurst, a novice sailor who essentially lost his way and his mind during the voyage and didn’t make it back. The documentary Deep Water tells his story, and the novel Outerbridge Reach uses elements of it as well. There are so many amazingly well-written books to read; this is definitely one of them.

The Longest Journey by E.M. Forester, 1907.  Forester (A Room with a View, Passage to India, Howard’s End) is one of my favorite novelists, so I approached this with high expectations. It is, however, not as accessible as his other works; still, it is the kind of novel that grows on you and that you understand better some time after you’ve read it. The story is about a young man who wants to become a writer but who gets married and gets diverted from his ambition along the way. It is interesting, but it is also work to read this novel.

The Death of the Adversary by Hans Keilson, 1959 (translated by Ivo Jarosy, 2010). Amazon has a blurb about this book from the New York Times Book Review in which the author is called a “genius” and the novel a “masterpiece.” I agree whole-heartedly. I would add that the translator is brilliant. The novel is a psychological study of Hitler and his rise to power, and even if you think you’ve read enough about this topic or know enough, you should read this. I was lucky to have it sent to me to review for the National Translation Award; I gave it an excellent rating, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it wins the award.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, 2005. There are just so many good books to read. I really loved this story, told with wit, humor and intelligence, about a Ukrainian family that immigrates to England after the Second World War. The story revolves around the 84-year-old father in the family who has become a widower and who marries a 36-year-old Ukrainian bimbo who is using him to be allowed to stay in the country. There are several layers to the novel, and in addition to its cleverness, it quite moving.

Das Versprechen by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 1958. Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author who was a master the suspense/crime novel in German. I tried to read some best-selling crime novel in German this summer and was very disappointed; then I picked this up and couldn’t put it down. He also wrote Der Besuch der alten Dame which is often read in intermediate to advanced German classes. Das Versprechen is about a serial child killer.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, 2001. I see now what all the fuss is about this author—he is also a genius! This amazing work is about a more or less typical American family of the past few decades. The author is able to “become” each of the characters—the three grown children, the mother and the father—and the writing is fast-paced, intelligent, and very funny. But as with any truly great work, there is truth here in the writing, and that makes it so much more than just a great story.

An Island to Oneself by Tom Neale, 1990. A very simply told autobiographical account of Neale’s life on Suvarov, an uninhabited (when Neale was there some time ago) tropical atoll in the Cook Islands. I found this to be interesting and oddly comforting. Chris sailed to Suvarov during his time on the tall ship in the Cook Islands!

A Painted House by John Grisham, 2002. This really surprised me because it was very good! I always thought that Grisham was, well, a “schlocky” writer, but now I have to revise that opinion.  This is a well-written, fascinating story of a young boy who lives with his family on a cotton farm in Arkansas in the 1950s. It describes the difficult but also authentic life of farm families in the American South, and it helped me understand where a lot of our current American values come from.

A Texas Gardener's Cap and Some Books

While we were visiting my family in Texas, Dad requested that I make him a new knitted cap to wear while he's working in the garden. He had been wearing this crazy red and black acrylic thing that I crocheted eons ago. The yarn had hardened over the years; I couldn't believe I had ever made anything out of  pure acrylic because I dislike it so much. Here's a picture of Dad wearing the new green knitted cap. OK, the worsted-weight yarn does have some acrylic in it, but it also contains wool, which will make the cap warm, yet breathable.

Book News:

Run by Anne Patchett (2007). This is an interesting tale about a white Catholic family in Boston that adopts several black children. The surprise twist is that the birth mother has secretly followed the lives of her children as they've grown up with their family (I won't give any more away!). Patchett explores questions of where people belong and what they feel compelled to do with their lives, and she does it in that poignant yet realistic way that made her Bel Canto so lovely to read.

JPEG by Doug Coupland (2006). Coupland is a prolific novelist who wrote the famous Generation X, but this book doesn't appear to be available stateside. It is quite a hilarious read about young, brilliant computer nerds and is a good change of pace from the typical novel.

Dinge bei Licht by Tobias Hülswitt (2008). Martha and Alexander have been a couple for a long time when Martha has an accident and falls into a coma. Alexander, who has been having an affair, realizes what he is about to lose, and tells the story of Martha's life and their relationship. Although I found parts of this somewhat tedious, the writing was also very compelling.

Halbschatten by Uwe Timm (2008). Timm tells the story of Marga von Etzdorf, a female German aviator who actually lived and died young of suicide. He uses an odd device of telling Marga's story, and other events in Germany's stormy past, through the voices of several famous people who are buried in the Invalidenfriedhof in Berlin, where the aviator is also buried. This technique can be rather distracting at times, but Timm is such an amazing story teller, that I couldn't put the book down.

Captain James Cook: A Biography by Richard Hough (1994). Greg loved this book, and I liked it too, but not as much as he did. I enjoy a good biography, but I found this one a little lacking in imagination at times. Still, it is very worthwhile to read it if you want to learn more about Captain Cook, who explored so much of the world, including New Zealand and our own Pacific Northwest.

Recently Read

The Old Devils (1986) by Kingsley Amis. A long, rambling and kinda crazy story about a group of Welsh friends who meet up again when they are getting on in years. I thought about putting this down several times while reading it, but I love Amis's humour, and the ending made it all worth it.

A Handful of Dust (1934) by Evelyn Waugh. I didn't remember that I had read this before until I was well into it, but it certainly was worth a re-read. It's one of the great ones! It chronicles the story of a young British couple in the 1920s. It's fascinating how modern their lives sound.

Das Wochenende (2010) by Bernhard Schlink. Schlink wrote the best-selling novel The Reader that was turned into a movie. In both novels he presents difficult moral issues that the characters struggle with. I appreciate what he tries to do, but I don't think he does it very well. Somehow, I don't find the situations he sets up to be believable, or maybe it's the characters that aren't believable.

Dreamers of the Day (2008) by Mary Doria Russell. I have been reading a fair amount of historical fiction lately that is really good and quite believable. This belongs to that category. I loved it. It's a beautifully told story about the Middle East in the days of Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchhill (between the world wars).

Romeo and Juliet (1597 (first appeared)) by William Shakespeare. What can I say, it's Romeo and Juliet!

A Shawl and Some Books

The yarn for this shawl is a wool-acrylic blend, bulky weight (Lana Grossa "Mega Stoppino Fuso"), that I just had to have when I saw it at a store in Munich. I loved the self-striping pinks, taupes and tans, and although I had no idea what I would make with it, I bought it. I then had a lot of trouble figuring out what to do with it, starting and ripping out at least four different garments before finally settling on this simple shawl pattern (available on the Lion Brand website, "Splendid Triangle Shawl"). It's odd the way it can be so difficult to match yarn to the right project.

Becoming Jane Eyre (2009) by Sheila Kohler. The author pulls you into the world of the Bronte sisters with this sweet and sad tale. Although it's imagined, it is based on research as well, and one thinks the Brontes' lives may have really been the way they are portrayed here.

Olive Kitteridge (2008) by Elizabeth Strout. Olive Kitteridge is a quirky and tragic character, and there are many memorable parts to this book. It was a real page-turner, and book clubs probably would like this one a lot.

Cranford (1851) by Elizabeth Gaskell. A classic in the style of Jane Austin, but a little rougher around the edges.

Sternstunden der Menschheit (1929) by Stefan Zweig. Zweig tells the stories in spellbinding fashion of monumental historical events, such as the fall of Constantinople, the first telegraph line across the Atlantic, and Lenin's return to Russia to lead the revolution.

Changing Places (1975) by David Lodge. This is an absolutely hilarious tale about two professors, one from California and the other from England, who exchange their teaching positions for six months. The author captures the absurdities of academia (reminiscent of Moo) in both countries in that very humorous, understated British manner.

Just Books

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (1997) by Haruki Murakami. This author (and his translator) are brilliant; the book was a real thought-provoking page-turner. It's hard to even describe what it's about--a young man whose life becomes strange and convoluted as he tries to bring his emotionally traumatized wife back to him. But there are so many layers of the story, and all are intriguing.

Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel. I finally read this, and it is fantastic! The translation really seems to underscore the tragic, beautiful and noble qualities of this tale.

Rolling Thunder (1974) by Doug Boyd. Rolling Thunder, an American Indian medicine man, has become a part of my life. I often try to imagine how he would view various situations and what his mind-set would be. While reading this description of his practice, I was surprised to discover how close American Indian and Eastern spiritual thought are to each other.

The Europeans (1878) by Henry James. A brother and sister pair who grew up in Europe come to America to meet their relatives and seek their forture. James enjoys playing with the differences in the characteristics of the two types--the European and the American, and the story is compelling and fun to read.

An Odd Assortment of Books

Book news:

Shakespeare dringend gesucht, by Heinar Kipphardt, 1953. A satirical play about a theater director who is looking for the next Shakespeare. The play was a huge success in socialist East Germany in the 1950s in spite of its, or because of its, palatable social criticism. It's actually quite funny.

Black Elk Speaks, as told to John G. Neihardt, 1932. Even though I already knew that the European-Americans completely wiped out the American Indians, reading this book felt like learning about that fact for the first time. It's devastating to read, but very worthwhile.

Ehen in Philippsburg, by Martin Walser, 1957. Walser's first novel is about a young man who establishes himself in the prosperous German society of the 1950s. All the relationships, including his own, are unhealthy, to put it mildly. Walser's skill in writing ironic prose is fantastic.

An Introduction to English Sentence Structure by Andrew Radford, 2009. This sounds like it's easy to read--after all, it's an introduction. Well, it was very difficult as it is actually about Chomsky's Mimimalism. I learned a lot!

Poem and Books

Today I'm stealing a poem idea from a blog I enjoy called The Goat Rope:

He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy.
He who kisses the joy as it flies,
Lives in eternity's sunrise.

William Blake (1757-1827)

I also have some book news:



Ahab's Wife (1999) by Sena Jeter Naslund. I read this during my first few weeks here in Germany, and it helped me get through the jet lag and disorientation. It is "a great read" in so many ways. It is written like historical fiction, but it is actually fiction about fiction--since Ahab refers to Melville's Moby Dick. The critic in me felt like that part didn't work, but the story and the writing are very engaging.

Stine (1890) by Theodor Fontane. German literature fans know Theodor Fontane (1819-1898) is a famous German author who wrote the classic Effie Briest. The theme of this short work is typical of Fontane: the disastrous fate of the individual who acts in a way that society does not approve of. While this novel was not as successful as many of his others, the Fontane style is enjoyable, and it's also fun trying to decipher the parts written in Berlin dialect.

Moo (1995) by Jane Smiley. What a fantastic spoof of academic life! Smiley pulls this off with subtlety and wit.

Schachnovelle (1943) by Stefan Zweig. A short, interesting novel by another great German writer, this is a psychological portrait of two personalities who battle on the chess board.

In Love with Purple

I love to knit and decorate with purple, or more specifically, lavender and what I like to call "aubergine" (a deep eggplant color). These shades are rich, yet also soft and subtle, and they go with many other colors (especially green and turquoise). The purple bowl contains variegated purple yarn on the left and the lavender and aubergine socks (knitted on two circular needles) on the right. The variegated purple yarn is a super bulky-weight cotton/acrylic blend by Sirdar called "Denim Ultra," and it is to become a sweater for sister Fran. Our aubergine couch is in the background.

Book news:

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. There's a reason they call books like this "classics." What a moving story! So much about the treatment of women in Hardy's time seems like it could still apply today. The latest PBS film of this story is beautifully done and follows the book exactly.

Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin. This amazing memoir was written by a ballet dancer who defected from China in the early 1980s to dance with the Houston Ballet. He came from a peasant family and was chosen as a young boy to be trained at Madam Mao's dance school. It's written in a simple, straightforward style that reveals the author's intelligence and sensitivity--and the story is also very dramatic!

Chris Video Clip and Books

This past weekend Chris went to Houston to visit his friend and fellow band member Alan and perform at a venue. Here's a video clip of their show--Chris is on the right. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWy8aG7qKYM

Here's a little bit about some books I'm reading or have recently finished:

Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wow...I should have read this a long time ago. Bonhoeffer was a German pastor who was imprisoned by the Nazis and eventually executed by hanging. His writing is poignant and inspirational.

The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. Weiner looks at "Darwin's finches," which are actually 13 different species of finch that live on the Galapagos Islands, in order to trace the development of the theory of evolution and to look at the current evolution of these birds. Who would have thought that reading about finch beaks would be a page-turner!

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This book traces both the history of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago AND the story of a serial killer during the same time period. If you like architecture, history, and gruesome details about Jack the Ripper types, this one is for you.

A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols. The story of the first non-stop around the world solo sailing trip. It's fascinating to read about the personalities of the men who attempted this voyage.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is an excellent story about a childhood in Afghanistan with a bit of an unbelievable turn at the end, and good writing, but not great writing.

That's all I've got for today!