Take Me, Take Me with You

by Lauren Kelly

Found this on the paperback table at a Borders one rainy (hurricane) night. And then found it again through the GIL system...

A very strange sort of suspense novel. Another novel where the characters are more archetypes than actual people, but it was interesting. And not so much scary as disturbing. It's supposed to be about the cycle of love and hate, attraction and fear. And it acheives some of those metaphors, made me think some about "f%#*ed up individuals" and the people who make them that way. And the main character also bears a striking resemblance to Laura in Tennessee Williams' Glass Menagerie, but I wasn't sure if that was an allusion or a lack of originality on the author's part.

"Still, I liked it that men's eyes drifted onto me sometimes in public places, and snagged like fishhooks. It wasn't my fault, I was blameless. I encouraged no one. I deceived no one. If I seemed to promise something I was not, the misinterpretation was not my own"

The Meaning of Everything

by Simon Winchester

A long time ago, I read a book about the volunteer method of collecting words for the Oxford English Dictionary (The Professor and the Madman). It took me a long time to get through, and my main memory of reading it is the time I went with D. to East Lansing, Mich. It was also on that trip that I first saw a copy of the OED (in the c ompact form) with its little magnifying glass and everything. I recently looked up the OED on Amazon.com and found out I could have my very own OED (compact version) for only $250. Someday... Anyway, this is another book, by the same author, on the OED, only this one focuses on the Dictionary as a whole, and not what two specific individuals did. So I read it. And, besides, who could resist a title like The Meaning of Everything.

It's an interesting book, for word-nerds. Makes me appreciate WordSpy even more and Eats, Shoots & Leaves even more. And the vocabulary in it challenged me at times, which was neat. It made me appreciate the English language more, and think about the different shades of meaning that our language allows us to indicate, in order to allow us to closer approximate what we mean. It's an ode to our toolkit for expression, and to taking on the impossible because it needs to be done. And to not settling for easier substitutes when it is clear what the Right Thing should be. I liked it because it's a story of idealism that wasn't compromised. And it even had a sense of humor about the whole thing.

"Obsolete words, for a start, were not fully registerd in any dictionary thus far published. Secondly, families or groups of words were only capriciously included in these same dictionaries - some members of families made it in, some did not. Then again, such histories of words as were included in dictionaries rarely looked back far enough - the cited earlies appearances of many words was all to frequently given as more recent than their actual inauguration, because the research had been performed too sloppily. Fourthly, important meanings and senses of words had all too often been passed over - once again, the research had too often been too perfunctory. Little heed had been paid to distinguishing between apparently synonymous words. sixth, there seemed to be a superabundance of redundancy in all previous dictionaries - too many of them were bloated with unnecessary material, at the expense of what was really wanting. And finally, much of the literature which ought to have been read and scanned for illustrative quotations had not been read at all: any serious and totally authoritative dictionary had perforce to be the result of the reading and scanning and schouring of all literature - all journals, magazines, papers, illuminated monastic treatises, and volumes of written and printed publicly accessible works great, small, and impossibly trivial."

"He was a keen huntsman and a good shot. [Footnote indicated.]

[Text of footnote:] Fairly good: he blew off his right hand in 1864, but remained keen on the sport."

"The circumferential ripples of new-formed English words will become ever larger, ever wider, and ever less well defined: that much is certain. And what is certain too is that humans, being humans, will be on hand as well, in some way or another, as they have been for so long, to catch all these words, to list them all, and to record and fix them for all in time, for always."

See Jane Date

by Melissa Senate

This book is one of Red Dress Ink's publications - which is notable as a prolific chick lit publisher. They're usually pretty entertaining, if a little formulaic, but every once in awhile you end up with a really good one. Incidentally, I've also just discovered that they're a division of Harlequin books (which makes the tiny, trashy romance novel).

From that perspective, these books are far more liberated, a lot funnier, and a little more pricey than their counterparts in other divisions. A little formulaic, but that's okay, most chick lit is. In fact, most books are, I suppose. And not that following a recipe is a bad thing - I like my chocolate chip cookies exactly like the recipe on the chocolate chip bag. Like, within the first 10 pages I knew who she would end up with. And it's not any of the guys that appear in the other 300 pages. And I knew that she would befriend her enemy, and confront her insecurities while helping her friends confront theirs. And though she would finally get approval from certain parties, it wouldn't matter as much as the self-esteem that she gains. But the book is funny along the way, and was a quick fluffy read. Not the best of the chick lit I've read, but definitely not the worst.

Prep

by Curtis Sittenfeld

High school is hard. The question is, is it any harder at boarding school than at regular high schools. Does the fact that you're paying for the privlige to be miserable make it worse? And do you have to surrender your right to be critical, just because you're lucky enough to pay for that opportunity? This book reminded me just how exhausting both self-doubt and high school can be.

I read this book because B. recommended it... She liked the senior year the best, I liked the previous years better. I was hoping she'd become less self-conscious as she got older, but no, just absorbed in different types of paranoia - a relationship with a boy.

It also bothers me when people don't own up to their ability to change things in their lives. That some people would rather bitch about a crappy situation than do what's necessary to, if not fix it, then at least make it less crappy. There's only so much "oh poor me" I can take without action, from real life or fictional characters.

"As I watched her hunched back grow smaller and smaller, I felt as happy for myself as I did for her. I had taught Conchita to ride a bike - it was incredible. And this was a feeling, perhaps the only one from our brief friendship, that never went sour."

"And there was something else, another reason I didn't want to go to the activities center with Nick. I believed that if you had a good encounter with a person, it was best not to see them again for as long as possible lest you taint the previous interaction. Say it was Wednesday and there was an after-dinner lecture and you and your roommate struck up some unexpectedly fun conversation with the boys sitting next to you. Say the lectur turned out to be boring and so throughout it you wispered and made faces at one another, and then it ended and you all left the schoolhouse. And then forty minutes later, you, alone now, without the buffer of a roommate, were by the card catalog in the library and passed one of these boys, also without his friend - then what were you to do? To acknowledge each other by nodding would be, probably, unfriendly, it woudl be confirmation of the anomaly of your having shared something during the lecture, and already you'd be receding into your usual roles. But it would probably be worse to stop and talk. You'd be compelled to try prolonging the earlier jollity, yet now there would be no lecturer to make fun of, it would just be the two of you, overly smiley, both wanting to provide the quip on which the conversation could sastisfactorily conclude. And then what if, in the stacks, you ran into each other again? It would be awful!

This anxiety meant that I spent a lot of time hiding, usually in my room, after any pleasant exchange with another person."

Blind Side

by Catherine Coulter

Hopefully no relation to Ann Coulter. I started this book in audio version on a trip back from Charleston to Atlanta. Except it a dark, lonely road with a little bit of rain, and listening to this suspense novel was just a little too creepy. So I finally got it from a used book store, and finally got around to finishing it.

It's a fun, beach-type read. A little implausible at times, but hey, what can you do. It's about a kid who keeps getting kidnapped (by the same people) and the small town sheriff who falls in love with the kid's father while protecting him. There's also two other FBI agents hanging around too, and they're interesting characters. Not a great novel, but if you like mysteries and whodunits, it's all right.

What Was She Thinking?

by Zoe Heller

Don't know where I heard about this book to request it from the library. But when they sent me the email saying that I should come pick up this book that I ordered, I went.

It's about a scandal. A teacher has an affair with one of her high-school students, and another friend of hers records the events surrounding the affair. By the end of the book, I was convinced that this other teacher, who also narrates the book, was far more "evil" than the teacher who started sleeping with a fifteen year old boy. Maybe it's that she acts with malice in her self-indulgence rather than simple thoughtlessness. It's as if because she's more aware and less naive, she's less good. Or maybe it's that her many small sins actually weigh more than one big one.

"There it was again - the perverse refusal to acknowledge my hostility. She seemed to me like some magical lake in a fairy tale: nothing could disturb the mirror-calm of her surface. My snide comments and bitter jokes disappeared soundlessly into her depths, leaving not so much as a ripple.
I would like to say that I was ashamed of myself. I am certainly ashamed now. But what I felt at the time was rage: the boiling rage of defeat."

Hanna's Daughters

by Marianne Fredriksson

Saw it at the bookstore on campus. Couldn't tell if it was chick-lit (or women's lit, 'cause it's about older women) or a best-seller, but I went and ordered it from the library.

It was all right. Once you get into the sparse, Nordic way of talking (where elaborations are sparse, and life is hard, but no one complains) it's a really interesting book. More of a women's read though, as it spends a lot of time talking about troubles that it claims uniquely for women. And in the vein of "aren't women strong and put-upon" novels, it's good. It also had the message of that we never appreciate our mothers (and their strife) until we grow up and are mothers ourselves (or at least, these women didn't). I liked the book. I really liked the two oldest women in the generational saga, but by the end, I'd decided I'd liked the granddaughter as well. And, by coincidence, the IKEA here in Atlanta opened the same day that I finished this novel about Swedish women.

"For she knew good fortune was measured out and was costly if you were given too much. But then she straightened up, tossed back her head, and thought she'd already paid.
'Justice,' she said aloud. 'I wouldn't never have believed that God could be just.'"

We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

Somewhere along the way, I learned that this book had won this years Orange Prize for fiction. I read the synopsis of it and decided to check it out from the library. And so it came all the way from the Perimeter :)

It's about a woman whose son commits a school shooting. About whether she's to blame for it, and where does she go from here. It's dark. And it's funny, because though I didn't expect it to be light and fluffy, I was surprised about how dark it could be. and it's funny too, in black humor moments. It's a really good book. I see why it won a prize.

It also made me think about motherhood. About what to do, if, say, you realized your son was a sociopath and sadist. What do you do when there's nothing to be done? I don't believe they know how to fix a lack of empathy right now, or teach someone "not to be like that". In this case, it certainly didn't help that the whole of the family couldn't acknowledge the problem, but as a mother, how do you fix the unfixable. What do you do if you find out your child is a trainwreck waiting to happen?

"I never, ever took you for granted. We met too late for that; I was nearly thirty-three by then, and my past without you was too stark and inconsistent for me to find the miracle of companionship ordinary. But after I'd survived for so long on th escraps from my own emotional table you spoiled me with a daily banquet of complicitous what-an-asshole looks at parties, surprise bouquets for not occasion, and fridge-magnet notes that always signed off 'XXXX, Franklin.' You made me greedy. Like any addict worth his salt, I wanted more. And I was curious. I wondered how it felt when it was a piping voice calling, 'Momm-MEE?' from around that same corner. You started it - like someon who gives you a gift of a single carved ebony elephant, and suddenly you get this idea that it might be fun to start a collection. "

"But in the same vein, when a car nearly sideswipes me in a crosswalk, I've noticed that the driver is frequently furious - shouting, gesticulating, cursing - at me, whom he nearly ran over and who had the undisputed right of way. This is a dynamic particular to encounters with male drivers, who seem to grow all the more indignant the more completely they are in the wrong. I think the emotional reasoning, if you can call it that, is transitive; you make me feel bad; feeling bad makes me mad; ergo, you make me mad. If I'd had the presence then to seize on the first part of that proof, I might have glimpsed in Kevin's instantaneous dudgeon a glimmer of hope. But at the time, his fury simply mystified me. It seemed so unfair. Women tend more toward chagrin, and not only in traffic. So I blamed me, and he blamed me. I felt ganged up on."