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June 26
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David
took the never-ending book quiz.
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November 25, 2007
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David
gave
to:
Charlotte's Web (Paperback)
by E.B. White
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in October, 2007
David said:
"I grew up without reading this book. For some, that seems to be unimaginable. I can maybe understand why. My wife and I are reading it now, or I should say, I am reading it aloud before bed, and it's really wonderful. I could totally see why it w...more
I grew up without reading this book. For some, that seems to be unimaginable. I can maybe understand why. My wife and I are reading it now, or I should say, I am reading it aloud before bed, and it's really wonderful. I could totally see why it would be a kind of life-formative book. I was reading a passage last night and laughing at it (there is so much in here that is really funny), and it made me wonder about the level of the humor. That is, would the kid me have thought this was funny or is it my adult self? And I think probably the kid would have. This is all to say that reading it now, as an adult, it gives me an appreciation for kids' minds, and kids' books that take them seriously, even in their humor. I hope that all makes sense. I'm a late comer to the Harry Potter books, too, but was really delighted by them in some of the same ways.
But--to get back to "Charlotte's Web"--there's a section about the end of summer, a couple chapters away from their Fair trip. White makes this lovely kind of song about the end of the season and the coming of Fall and the kind of beauty and dread and tinged sadness of it all. My god, it was affecting. That's something that I probably would not have picked up on as a kid, but I think that has more to do with kid-me than with most kids. I know my wife remembered that part distinctly, in fact it is one of the reasons we went back to this book now. We have recently moved from Minnesota, our home for about four years, and Fair Time there just passed. We really experienced the sort of sad beauty of summer's end there. In our new place in Chapel Hill it hasn't happened quite yet. It is still hot and very dry from drought, so I don't know if there will be that kind of fading moment or not. We'll have to see.
Anyhow, when a book for kids (whatever--for all of us) can make you laugh and cry and think about the beautiful sadness of death--then, damn, what can you do but ramble?...less
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David
gave
to:
The Wet Collection (Hardcover)
by Joni Tevis
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: essayists, poets, park rangers, nomads, naturalists, and spiritual seekers of all stripes
read in June, 2007
David said:
"In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I am married to the author. No really, I am. But that doesn't mean that I can't review this book. Because the essays in this collection are truly unlike anything else I've ever read--smart, lyri...more
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention I am married to the author. No really, I am. But that doesn't mean that I can't review this book. Because the essays in this collection are truly unlike anything else I've ever read--smart, lyrical, and intensely personal without making a spectacle of intimacy.
The title makes reference to that part of the Natural History Museum that often gets tucked back into a corner somewhere--the "wet collection" is the group of jars with dead stuff in it, bits of snake and voles, a stoppered beaker full of eyes. From these small fragments, we gain insight and make inferences about the rest of the creature, it relationship to us and to the world. Joni's essays work this way; they take something small, something lost or broken and imagine the whole, preserve the lost.
...less
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October 08, 2007
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David
gave
to:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Paperback)
by Ron Hansen
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my rating:
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David
gave
to:
A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York (Hardcover)
by Timothy J. Gilfoyle
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my rating:
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August 30, 2007
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David
gave
to:
The Road (Hardcover)
by Cormac McCarthy
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in August, 2007
David said:
"I know that it is nothing new to reccommend this book. Oprah liked it, people have raved about it, etc. But it is, honestly at this moment, the last book I've read, so I thought I would chime in.
A couple things about it that I found amazing:
...more
I know that it is nothing new to reccommend this book. Oprah liked it, people have raved about it, etc. But it is, honestly at this moment, the last book I've read, so I thought I would chime in.
A couple things about it that I found amazing:
It's sweet. I mean, it is horrifying, too, but there are moments of such deep tenderness. And McCarthy pulls them off in a word or two of dialogue--not even particularly unique dialogue--lines like "Okay." "Okay" in the right place, in the right context cna have such a big effect. I haven't read everything he has written, but in some ways, this seems like the most tender book of his I've read.
It's horrifying. At one point I was physiologically disturbed--anxious, worried. Not just interested, entertained, but like body-stressed. That's something.
He writes a whole book, no chapters, just one long pull, with only two real characters. That's hard, I think.
And last, for now:
He writes about the natural world in its absence and decay, in its ruin. He must use the word "ash" a hundred times, but he is somehow able to make each description of it fresh, so that even though the character looks out on a landscape that seems little changed, we as readers don't feel as though we have read this detail before.
Okay--I suppose that's enough.
I liked it a lot.
If you haven't read it, give it a look....less
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