Bookshop Bumblings

Another cheery topic for 2006! A twelve year old girl drowns in the only free river left in South Carolina. (Free meaning that federal law protects it and keeps anything being done to it.) Her body is trapped, and they can’t recover it so after five weeks her parents demand to construct a temporary dam so divers can reach the body. Only, that would be against federal law. Thus, the crux.

I never knew how fun saying, “Thus, the crux” would be.

But I digress.

The story is told through the point of a photographer who is covering the story for a paper from a larger city several hours away. However, she grew up in the area and knows everyone involved with the exception of the deceased girl’s family because they were on vacation at the time.

Rash is quite talented at capturing what it’s like to be from a place and love it so much, yet feel the need to escape it as well. Then, dealing with the reconcilation between loving it and wanting to run away from it at the same time. Not that I know anything about that. Not at all.

I’ve tried to read Didion’s non-fiction before, and gave up before I smothered myself with the dust jacket. Man, it’s boring. However, since her latest chronicle about dealing with her husband’s sudden death while her only child was in a coma in a hopsital was receiving such accolades I decided to try it again.

I hate to kick an author when she’s down, but I still don’t see what everyone is raving about. It was basically a recounting of things that would only interest me if it had been my own mother or someone else I was close to. Otherwise, it just seemed like I was reading someone’s diary when I shouldn’t. I felt like I was invading her privacy, and listening to thoughts and feelings that weren’t universally relateable. Or maybe they’re just not to me since I’ve never lost a husband of twenty years. Either way – Meh.

The next book I was going to read was Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Memories of My Melancholy Whores.” Wouldn’t that be a menage a trois of depression? Fortunately, my order for that hasn’t come in yet so I will have to venture into, hopefully, happier territory.

I was just a few pages away from finishing “A Year Of Magical Thinking” when I decided that I would read another book instead so I wouldn’t start the year on such a sad literary note. Thus, I picked up “The Burn Journals” because nothing is more happy and more of a great foot to start a year out on than the detailing of a young man who tried to commit suicide by setting himself on fire.

The disconcerting thing about this book is that I related so much to the author. We were born in the same year, and so many of the events and people that seemed to bookmark his childhood were familiar. Also, I had the same unsettling way of solving my problems. No, I never decided to make myself a one woman bonfire, but I did set rather harsh consequences on typical juvenile actions. The only difference is that he kept escalating his personal punishments to his actions as they became more serious and likely to get him into even more trouble. Whereas I just realized that I had to make no more mistakes to stay alive so I didn’t really allow myself to screw up, be disobedient, or really even live normally until I managed a better way of coping with making mistakes.

Another note, I rather like the cover of the book that I have featured with this entry, but it was not the one of the edition I read. The one I read has cover art which looks as if it was drawn by someone who had received burns on their hands. *shudders*

Finally, I read a raving review about a book which actually deserves it! I loved this book – it was the perfect mix of humor, insightfulness, and reality even though it involves a talking cat.

Also, can I just say that this is book #53 so this makes the first New Year’s Resolution which I’ve ever kept. Go me! Although, I think I usually read more than this but it’s been one of those years. All in all though, this will be one that I’m going to try and keep doing. Of course, if things keep going the way they are I might have to start reviewing cereal boxes.

Even though there’s one more book out in this series, I think this might be the last one I read. The first one was so clever and hilarious! But now it’s just so getting tired, but I wanted to give it one last try. Le sigh.

Seeing as Ms. Hinton wrote one of my favorite books from when I was a teenager, I was very excited to start Hawkes Harbor. That excitement lasted… all the way up until I actually began the actual reading of it. Hinton definitely didn’t Stay golden as it were.

This is the third book involving vampires that I read this year, and by far the worst. Her telling from a man’s perspective no longer works for me. Even the situations that didn’t involve the undead, seemed very unrealistic to me. She had characters of both genders acting in ways that just didn’t seem believable. It wasn’t a complete waste of time, because about three fourths of the way through I started caring enough about the characters to see it through the end. However, it was still completely disappointing.

But then again, I also loved Theodore Dreiser’s ‘American Tragedy’ when I was younger so perhaps it’s only my past taste that is to blame.

What I learned most from this book was: don’t live in Alaska, just visit.

I don’t know if it’s because the author’s job is writing obituaries, but this book just seemed to be story after story of someone dying in her small Alaskan town. There were some good parts as well, but they seemed so few and far between. It was a little akin to “Marley and Me” but with more of a homage to where she lives than is ever hinted to in Marley.

Of course, they both end with a dog dying which might be why Miss Flannery always seems to be giving me discouraging looks whenever I am writing something.

Me: Are you looking at porn?
Katy: Yeah, Laura, I’m looking at naked pictures of Robert E. Lee
Me: Well, his horse was named Traveler.

The above is why I should never be allowed to write a novel on the Civil War. Thankfully, Mr. Hicks has more restraint than I do.

I didn’t realize until I had almost finished that it is based on a true story, or rather a real person. Carrie McGavock who lived in the almost minute Franklin, Tennessee where what many consider to be the bloodiest five hours of the Civil War were spent in an awful battle. Not only did she allow her house to be turned into a hospital where she tended to the injured, but after the battle she negotiated a created a resting place for approximately 1,500 dead soldiers. Hicks created this wonderful story around McGavock which translated into an enjoyable read even for a girl who isn’t entirely fond of the Civil War fiction genre. No matter how many generals had horses with frisky names.

I picked up this book with low expectations, thinking that I was only reading it so I might be able to be more in the know once Christmas season starts. However, it turned out to be delightfully interesting.

Berendt kind of skips and hops between different subjects all set in Venice: the burning and rebuilding of the opera house, the swindling of Ezra Pound’s mistress by the creating of the Ezra Pound foundation, the schism of the Save Venice society, and so forth. It was enough variation that it kept it interesting rather than seeing abrupt. Also, I learned fantastic little tidbits like the fact that rats can’t throw up. And that they also have an anisthetic of sorts in their saliva so you don’t feel a rat bite as much as you think you would, because that’s what kind of completely random conversations you have when you attend at a Venice masquerade ball. Not to negate Venice’s grandeur, but it’s akin to something I’d hear at a cookout at my Uncle Chip’s house.