Monday, October 30, 2006
Rick Bragg
Cyndi Allison, one of the Book Help Web contributors and the publisher of Cooking Help Web, tells me her favorite author is
Rick Bragg. She's a huge fan of his books and met him once at a book signing where she was able to send him home with a spate more food than what he was served at the luncheon.
Rick Bragg is a former New York Times reporter who has written a series of books. I'm pleased to be able to share several reviews of those books with you.
All Over But the Shoutin is a memoir that tells Bragg's own story:
If you really want a glimpse across the poverty line, then pick up Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin'. This is one of the few books to come out of the "poor white trash" community, and it is raw, honest, and full of beautiful anecdotes, descriptions, and human feelings.
Though many books have been written and printed from the socially deprived black community standpoint, "white poverty" tends to be pushed to the back stove eye and basically considered to be a oxymoronic combination of words (white and poor). Now, certainly the black community is hit hardest with poverty in the U.S. in terms of percentages, but the raw numbers with a dominant white population group (close 80 percent) put persons-of-non-color at the top of the welfare roles as far as overall dependence on the system. I have a hard time convincing my students that the average welfare mom is white, but that is how it goes.
...
This is one of the all-time best books I've read and especially coming from an author out of the south and from a poor background. While it may not ring true with some readers, those would be readers from other areas of the country. It might be hard to picture the things that Bragg talks about, but I could feel every word of this book. If you are southern and particularly from the lower side of the poverty line, then I would say that you really need to read this book and celebrate the expression of a culture that has long been silent. If we don't give "voice" to all, then we don't really grow as a country. Even if you can't imagine this lifestyle, read the book and consider that some people in the US life very different from the TV world that we are sold on Time-Warner. It would be nice to think that poverty is just not having the latest Nike tennis shoes, but it does go much deeper and it cuts across all color lines.
His next book,
Ava's Man, tells the story of his grandparents:
Rick Bragg can spin a tale. He makes you see the fleas on a coonhound and feel itchy to boot. Although he's not old enough to be sitting on the front porch with all the kids gathered round, he is the master when it comes to weaving a story that will keep you begging for more.
Bragg grew up dirt poor, and then went on to write for major US newspapers and won a Pulitzer Prize for his story about the black lady who saved all her money and then donated it for a scholarship. He also covered the Susan Smith news when she drowned her kids in a car and said a black man did it.
Ava's Man is Bragg's second family book. The first is All Over But the Shoutin' which is the story of Bragg's life growing up with his mom and brothers. Ava's Man drops back and picks up the grandparents on his mothers side. Since his dad was pretty much trash, the mom side of the family has more impact. If you grew up in a single parent household where one family provided the support, then you'll know that the bonding goes the way of the family there and weathering the good and bad times.
Ava's Man is about Charlie who is Bragg's grandfather. Of course, Ava is the grandmother. She does get a lot of talk time in the book, but she plays second fiddle to Charlie who died before Rick Bragg was born. This is not really unusual in southern lore. The men are what legends are made of while the women pretty much made sure everyone ate and got raised up.
Our final Rick Bragg review is a memoir--but not of his family. He tells the story of Jessica Lynch in
I am a Soldier Too:
Rick Bragg wrote I Am a Soldier, Too — The Jessica Lynch Story. He is one of my favorite writers of all times, and he comes from a rural background similar to Jessica's. I can't think of anyone more suited to dig in and find out the heart of a story and especially one with small town roots. It wouldn't have mattered what project Bragg worked on, I would have bought the book, but I was excited that he selected this story to tell.
This story is not just a war tale. It drops back and let's the reader see Jessica as the rather prissy kid who loved to paint her nails and who made County Fair Queen. It talks about her dream to become a kindergarten teacher and talks about how she saw the military as a way to earn money to get a chance to do more than marry and raise kids. This is the reality for lots of rural boys and girls, and the book talks about the area and about the people who end up in the armed forces, because that's really the only way they can get out and travel and get some education.
Jessica did not sign up to be a Green Beret. She was a clerk and would hand out supplies like toilet paper and pens. Going to a war zone was a "stretch" for an 18-year-old who weighed 100 pounds. But, she shouldn't have seen any hand-to-hand combat. The person in charge missed a turn and landed the group in the middle of hostile territory where this group of behind-the-scenes personnel were faced with bullets flying and enemy soldiers stomping them to death. Very few made it out alive. Jessica is one who did live to tell the story, and the media loved the way she looked and sounded in print and on the little screen. She became the voice of this moment in history.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Courage and Michael Weisskopf
Like all good journalists,
Michael Weisskopf far prefers to report on a story than be the story. This is a truth that comes across in his book
Blood Brothers, where he would far rather tell the story of other people in his situation than to have the focus be on himself.
And yet, Weisskopf has rightly been hailed as a hero. A reporter for Time Magazine, Weisskopf was sent to Iraq to report on the Person of the Year award, which was slated to be the U.S. soldier. He was riding in a humvee with several soldiers and a Time photographer. A live grenade was thrown at them. Immediately, Weisskopf grabbed the grenade and threw it from the humvee, saving himself and everyone else on board. However, it cost him his right hand.
He was one of the few civilians ever to be placed in a military ward where he underwent rehabilitation along with others who had also lost limbs. This is the story that he tells in Blood Brothers.
Here is an excerpt from the new review at Book Help Web:
This is a story told plainly and simply without fanfare, movie score or parade. This is not a book about agenda or commentary on war, but instead a simple, compelling and heartwrenching tale of four men struggling and surviving. This isn't a war story, it's a human story.
Mr. Weisskopf had given us a difficult, but beautiful gift.
Stephen King
One of the wonderful things about having several contributors to Book Help Web is that it really helps the diversity of book reviews found here. For example, what general book site in its right mind doesn't talk about
Stephen King? But while I've researched the man enough to write a
profile on him, I've never read so much as a short story by him. If I were the only contributor here, Book Help Web would be woefully lacking in its coverage.
Thankfully, I'm not and I've had several contributors give the site Stephen King reviews. Yesterday, we posted a few more from C. Allison, the Cooking Help Web publisher.
The first is of
Hearts in Atlantis, a book she was very disappointed in:
I'm starting to think that Stephen King must be on drugs. I just finished reading Hearts in Atlantis and feel like I took a trip without ever leaving my recliner chair. The book is kind of a cross between King's traditional horror writing and his very odd Gunslinger days published initially in pieces as mini books. The very best I can figure is that he took a heap of his short stories, put them in time order, and tossed Carol in several stories to get some sense of continuity.
Her other review is of
Songs from a Buick 8, which she isn't much more pleased with. In fact, it's pretty safe to say she thought it was worse:
I haven't decided whether I'm a pickier reader now than back when Stephen King first blew me away with his first novel, Carrie, or whether King has become so famous that he knows he can dump off a lousy book on the reading public without damaging his reputation much. You'd think that a good writer would get better over time and would produce stronger rather than weaker books. In fact, King did pen some gems after his runaway first book — books like The Shining, Pet Sematary, and Cujo. He also got caught up in his Gunslinger which I find terribly annoying (in part due to the work being put out in series form) and turned his hand at non-fiction with the academic themed Dance Macabre (dull as an economic textbook).
From a Buick 8 rides on King's coattails and highlights his shortcomings as a writer (which can easily be overlooked if his story is strong). Had this book been written under another name, it would likely have never been printed and surely would have gone belly up in the bookstores. It really is THAT BAD.
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Alex Flinn and Diva
Being on tour can be a thankless task for most authors. The events can be difficult for even the most savvy bookstores to publicize and its often only the really big names that can draw crowds.
Yet, book signings are also wonderful events for those who do attend them. You get to put an actual face to the author and learn far more about the book than you do just from reading its pages. If you've never read the author before, book signings are an opportunity to hear the person talk about his or her books and decide whether they are something you want to read.
Such was the case for a recent
book signing that I attended. It was there I had the opportunity to meet
Alex Flinn who was stopping by in Lansing after doing a number of presentations at libraries in Midland. She read from the first chapter of her latest book,
Diva, and then talked for a while about how she became a writer, her own experiences in a performing arts high school, and about
Diva and her other books, most notably
Breathing Underwater.
Diva is "a companion novel to
Breathing Underwater but it's a lot different in tone," Flinn said. It's humorous with a sharp edge. It's a book for young girls, letting them know there is something beyond boyfriends and being pretty."
While it has been a long time since I was a teenager and I was never someone who was bothered one way or another about my weight or dating, I did enjoy the novel and can easily see why Flinn is so appealing to teenagers.
Here's an excerpt from my
Diva review:
Diva explores many issues that are of relevance to teenagers, foremost among them the obsessions with dating and weight. It takes Caitlin a long time to figure out that 115 pounds is not fat nor is it any reason to panic. She keeps a daily record of her weight in an online journal and obsesses over every bite she consumes. It's hard to blame her, though, when she is surrounded by voices that make her feel like a "fatgirl." Flinn takes a pretty realistic look at the pressures a teenager can get that distort self-image completely out of proportion.
At a book signing, Alex Flinn says she hopes that girls who read Diva will take from it that there is something more to life than boyfriends. It's a lesson that Caitlin seems a little slow to learn at first, showing a willingness to bypass incredible opportunities on the chance that she'll have more time to spend with a particular guy. However, life continues to throw her curves which make her realize that there are other things in life than just dating, a lesson she learns even before her mother does.
Diva is an easy-to-read book with a streak of breathy humor running throughout it. It's peppered with online journal entries (which I kept expecting someone else in the novel to stumble across). Those entries are written in the annoying, but realistic, Internet-speak that constantly replaces "to" with 2.
Alex Flinn does an excellent job of writing an entertaining story that gives teenagers something to think and talk about without lecturing or talking down to them.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Norman Juster and The Phantom Tollbooth
One of my favorite books of all times is
Norman Juster's
The Phantom Tollbooth. It captured my imagination when I was a child and it continued to be just as readable and enjoyable as an adult. In fact, there were even more things I appreciated about it as I grew older.
There are no other books that I've purchased as many times as
The Phantom Tollbooth as I'm constantly buying it and giving it away. I've never been able to keep it in my house for longer than a few months. I recently purchased it again, because my son has become a reader. However, this was a book that I didn't want him to read alone, so we've been reading it aloud every night and having a blast. We're currently deep in the Mountains of Ignorance with Milo, Tock, and the Humbug fighting off such demons as the Everpresent Wordsnatcher, the Terrible Trivium, and the Demon of Insincerity.
So I had to smile when I came across
this piece at Kirkus Reviews today. Milo has turned 45. The author of the piece, Gregory McNamee, captures much of what I feel about this absolutely delightful book.
Talking with Jesse Kellerman
While I try to keep my reading list as diverse as possible, sampling books in many different genres and forms, I must confess an especially close affinity for two particular types of literature: young adult fiction and play scripts.
The latter I attribute to an especially good English teacher in high school who nursed us on Greek dramatists and then fed us more plays from every era in history forward. Even before I became involved in the theater, I found myself in love with scripts. They were almost the perfect medium because they wasted little time with description, allowing my imagination to visualize the characters and actions. And unless you were talking about an epic like the Kentucky Cycle or Lazarus Laughed, they tended to be tightly written and incredibly focused.
So I must confess that I had more than a little
delight at the opportunity to interview
Jesse Kellerman. Yes, yes, he wrote a novel. It's even a good novel. But he also wrote
plays! Last week I blogged about how delightful
3m1w is. Soon, I'll get reviews up of Sunstroke (the aforementioned novel) and his full-length play
Beyond Our Control.
The man's a very good playwright. In fact, I very much want to see his work performed locally and have been putting bugs in several people's ears.
He was also a delight to interview. Jesse Kellerman is erudite and witty. Here's a teaser from
the interview:
Drama without comedy is melodrama, and comedy without any trace of gravitas is silly. (If forced to choose, of course, I'd rather have silly. At least that's entertaining.) A instructive story: once, during rehearsal, we decided to see what would happen if we slowed down one of the comedies in 3m1w — the play Whatever, Whenever. Running it at half speed turned some of the funniest moments in the play into crushing tragedies. It was horrible to watch, just horrible. A man loses his job, his marriage, and his will to live — not very chuckleworthy stuff.
Until you speed it up, that is. And then it becomes a riot, because your brain isn't given time to appreciate the depth of the horror — only the surprise it brings with it. One of my professors in college once defined comedy as tragedy sped up to 100 MPH. I tend to agree.
I try to drive at right around 50, where the line blurs a bit. Things Beyond Our Control could be called either one, I think. And I've tried to inject some humor into my novels, as well — although, because they're more realistic in feel, I haven't been able to go whole-hog with my sense of the surreal. I hope to, someday.
I invite you to read the interview and hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.
Anna Quindlen and One True Thing
I have to chuckle sometimes at the manner in which I stumble upon authors to read. Two years ago, I was trying to make sure we had an author profile at Book Help Web for every letter of the alphabet. When I got to Q, I discovered
Anna Quindlen.
Within a week, I came across one of her books,
Black and Blue, at a used book sale. Remembering all the raves about her books that I read while researching her, I bought the book. It was immediately engrossing and highly suspenseful. Since then, she has been on my list to read more of (and perhaps even to get around to reviewing Black and Blue one of these days).
In the mean time, one of Book Help Web's contributors (and also the publisher of Cooking Help Web) gave BHW a review on one of Quindlen's other books:
One True Thing. She praises Quindlen's writing, but reported that she found it far too dark to enjoy:
Anna Quindlen is a great writer. I read her book Black and Blue and thought that was a good piece concerning spouse abuse. In One True Thing, I think she takes it too far in looking at the dark side of the world, thought the writing is still top notch. Perhaps it was just too soon after losing my Grandma. But, I don't think I'd ever want to read the book, and I can't imagine anyone I'd pass this along to. I feel tense just trying to write the review. I'd call the book very troubling and while some folks call that art, I should have just called it quits when I figured out the story (but I kept hoping right up to the end for some ray of hope).
In late August, Quindlen released her latest novel,
Rise and Shine. It's a book that enjoyed time on the bestseller lists, but has received mixed reviews. For myself, I think I'll try to catch some of her previous novels before reading her latest.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Picked up from another blog
A game for you to play with your friends:
1. One book that changed your life:
2. One book you've read more than once:
3. One book you would want on a desert island:
4. One book that made you laugh:
5. One book that made you cry:
6. One book you wish had been written:
7. One book you wish had never been written:
8. One book you are currently reading:
9. One book you have been meaning to read:
Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys
I may be one of the few readers left in America who hasn't read
Dave Barry. I'm definitely the only one left in my household as the man has become my son's latest favorite author. He recently read Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's
Peter and the Starcatchers and
Peter and the Shadow Thieves, falling in love with each of them.
I have to admit that I was a little hesitant when I first saw the titles as neither of those authors were particularly known as children's writers. Rather, Dave Barry was someone I associated with humor writing.
I'd already read about
Dave Barry Slept Here from one of the Book Help Web contributors. She made a strong case for getting this book:
Dave Barry Slept Here is a comic Cliff Notes to American history that takes a lot of liberties with our glorious past - and has a great time doing it. High schoolers, please do NOT read this book until your classes are over. Otherwise you'll go into helpless fits of giggling every time your teacher mentions the Hawley-Smoot Tariff, Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony, and other (formerly) serious topics.
The Miami Herald columnist (whom I read religiously every week) has organized his book like a typical high school tome - in chronological order, proceeding from one era to another. England Starts Some Fun Colonies segues into The Colonies Develop a Life-style, followed two chapters later by Kicking Some British Butt. He has also attached hilariously irrelevant discussion questions to the end of each section, and has included equally useful footnotes and a very selective index. (Among the entries: "Celtics, Boston," "Louis the Somethingth," and "Vader, Darth.")
Barry, who's earned a Pulitzer for his humorous commentary, is in fine form here. No historical fact is safe from satire; in one section, he provides his own wacky version of the Bill of Rights:
Then we had another contributor ring in with her endorsement of Barry's
The Complete Guide to Guys. While it has some dated references to it that Barry would probably just as soon were removed:
"I saw Ed test-fire one of those babies once, and I can tell you that if those radical Muslin fundamentalist terrorists had had Ed on their team in 1992, the World Trade Center would now be referred to as the World Trade Pit."
Of course, that was written in 1995 before the events of 9-11. For the most part, the book is a light look at the difference between men and guys:
The premise in this 1995 New York Times bestseller is that the bearded gender can be divided into two categories — men and guys. Barry does not really try to define the term "guy." He does note, however, that: "One of the main characteristics of guyhood is that we guys do not spend a lot of time pondering our deep innermost feelings." He also offers example charts to help readers distinguish the difference. Here is one of the examples he lists in "Stimulus-Response Comparison Chart: Women vs. Men vs. Guys:"
Stimulus: A child who is sent home from school for being disruptive in class.
Typical Woman Response: Talk to the child in an effort to determine the cause.
Typical Man Response: Threaten to send the child to a military academy.
Typical Guy Response: Teach the child how to make armpit farts.
For anyone still confused, Barry offers the "Are you a Guy?" quiz. This is a chapter with various questions and multiple choice answers. This is similar to Cosmo quizzes (for any of the girl readers out there). The required scoring is provided at the end of the chapter.
When October Comes
I had a friend who insisted that when Barry Manilow crooned, "When October Comes" that he was bemoaning the end of the baseball season. We were both Detroit Tigers fans, so most of the time when October came, there were no more games. Every so often, though, like this year, the Tigers would surprise us and make it to the playoffs.
Nowadays I live a tad too far away to see the Tigers play much, though my 8-year-old son made it to a game with his grandpa this year. I'm much more likely to catch a minor league game or simply read about it in the newspaper.
One of our Book Help Web contributors is a far more avid fan than I (though not of the the Tigers) and is known to read the baseball tome or two. Most recently, he submitted a review of a
Lee Gruenfeld (aka Troon McAllister) book. It somehow seems appropriate that Gruenfeld wrote a book about a savant given that he himself was somewhat of a child prodigy. He won his first music scholarship at age 6. Since then he has excelled in every career he has turned his hand to whether it be music, information technology, systems development, or writing.
As Troon McAllister, he writes sports novels, including
The Boy Who Batted 1.000. Here's an excerpt from our review:
Adapted and updated from an old story, The Kid Who Batted 1.000 is rich in baseball lore, tradition and fan love. The mix of anecdotes from all levels of baseball is sufficient to please the player who never went beyond junior high as well as someone who played in the minors. That is a wide range to fill.
But make no mistakes. This is not the children's book from the 1950s. Youngsters will need to be steered clear of language and other adult issues, well into their junior high school years. Others may not see the magic in the moonlight Doc Graham called upon in Field of Dreams, but baseball fans will enjoy the ride.
The Plot In Exactly One Hundred Words
Marvin is a college geek with a special gift. With a savant's uncanny knowledge of geometry and physics, he can make contact with any pitched ball. The balls all go foul since Marvin isn't an athlete, but he wears pitchers down. The smart ones give him an intentional walk when he starts playing for a bad Des Moines professional team. Others throw pitch after pitch, only tiring themselves. Baseball is only an exercise for Marvin, something he does for fun before heading to MIT, and despite a magical future for him as a professional, Marvin stays true to his dream.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Jesse Kellerman
While searching for some scripts a few months ago, I came across a name that was both familiar and unfamiliar. The last name was a jolt of instant recognition: Kellerman. I've been a huge fan of
Faye Kellerman for years and through her, became aware of her somewhat more famous husband,
Jonathan.
However, the script I was looking at was by neither Faye nor Jonathan, but their eldest and
only son,
Jesse. I was immediately intrigued, especially when I learned he had also recently written a novel.
Now, I have to admit that I feel more than a little guilty mentioning his parents in a post about Jesse Kellerman, for he is definitely a writer with his own distinct style and voice. Nor am I of the belief that we are necessarily the product of our parents (even though I myself followed in my father's career footsteps and it truly isn't that unusual no matter what the occupation). However, his parentage is something that provides us with context and I know that if I didn't mention it, I would leave many readers thinking, 'Hey, I wonder if he's related to...'
Plays, Inc. recently published Jesse Kellerman's collection of six short plays that can be presented together as
3m1w or
Very Small Things. They are a collection of plays that were performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (a locale that is also the site of
Kate Atkinson's latest book,
One Good Turn, but more on that next week).
I was immediately enchanted by these plays and have been busy ever since pushing them on theater folks I know because I would very much like to see them on a stage. They're modern, absurdist shows that are highly entertaining and often poignant.
From my
review posted this week at Book Help Web:
It's a collection of comedies that mock science, bureaucracy, poker, room service, literature/academia, and fashion. They're all meant to be fun sketches, ones that put together run between 100 minutes and 2 hours.
In the tradition of modern theater, it makes liberal use of explicit language — in part because the characters are explicit and true to the language they would speak. Jesse Kellerman provides a fair amount of stage direction that encourages directors to keep the play flowing. There are pauses in his plays, but more importantly, there is overlapping speech that characterizes high-energy productions.
It is also possible to do all of these sketches one right after another with minimal set requirements.
3m1w is a great exhibition piece for actors with some delightful and challenging lines to dig their teeth into. All six of the sketches are intelligent affairs that trust the audience to keep up on a madcap journey. For the most part, the one woman in each sketch has some of the least interesting roles.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The End by Lemony Snicket
Over the weekend, I was able to indulge in Lemony Snicket's
The End.
It truly was a fitting end to the series. Thematically, the book ranks as my favorite.
Daniel Handler explores the issue about whether parents are supposed to protect their children or prepare them to handle the treacheries of the world. He illustrated that those who wish to live in a totally safe environment may have to do so at the cost of their individuality and at the price of those passions which make life interesting.
Not all of the questions raised in the series are answered. The fate of the Quagmire triplets is somewhat unsatisfying, though Handler makes the point that we don't always know the fate of those who walk through our lives.
Here's an excerpt from the
review:
The Baudelaire orphans have finally found a place in which they can be truly safe and live lives uncomplicated by treachery. It is a place that comes with a price, for if they want to possess this safety, they'll have to give up their individuality. Violet will have to sacrifice her inventing, Klaus will no longer be allowed to read, and Sunny while still being allowed to cook must stick with a pre-ordained, bland diet.
After the lives they've lived since The Bad Beginning the choice is not as obvious as it might seem. Here they've finally found people who can see through Count Olaf's lies and who are willing to protect them. Is giving up a few of one's passions really such a horrible thing to ask in exchange for kindness and safety?
In asking this question, Snicket brings to a close this chronicle with what may be the best book yet in the series. Yes, there are some familiar pieces in this book. The orphans are plopped down in a situation against their will and must adapt to a community that is different than all the others they've met so far. The community has its own catch phrase — as have most of the communities they've encountered thus far. This time it is "I won't force you, but..." and "I suggest..." and "Don't rock the boat."
Friday, October 13, 2006
David Baldacci and The Collectors
David Baldacci is one of the giants in the thriller genre and has managed to attain that status without resorting to series writing.
At least, not until now. On the heels of the bestselling paperback release of
The Camel Club,
David Baldacci is returning to the cast of quirky characters he created with next Tuesday's release of
The Collectors.
This novel was my introduction to
David Baldacci's work, though Book Help Web has had several other contributors weigh in on such novels of his as
Saving Faith,
Wish You Well, and
Split Second. So far of the reviews we have, I seem to be the one who enjoyed
Baldacci the most--though George insists that he really likes
Baldacci--just not so much the ones that he's reviewed.
As for what I thought of
The Collectors, you can find out here:
David Baldacci takes his readers on a tour of the Library of Congress throughout the book, introducing them to how the library works, its treasures, and the people who populate it. He even provides an interview with an architect who is lovingly able to explain some of the recent reconstructions.
Overall, one of the strengths of the book is in the loving attention to detail and the fascinating tidbits of information that are constantly being thrown out. Another strength is that the characters are not high-powered spies with the resources of powerful organizations behind them. Rather they are the disenfranchised "little guys" of society who are fighting against something bigger and more powerful than themselves.
In all, The Collectors is an entertaining read that adds its own quirks and characters to the genre.
Read more...
It's the End
Today is Friday the 13th, which means we've come to The End.
Today is the day we'll finally find out what happens to the Baudelaire orphans and the quirky cast of characters surrounding them. Will it be an unhappy ending as
Lemony Snicket promised us? Or will there finally be a little bit of hope for the Baudelaires.
The answers are now all within reach.
In related news, the book that I thought was one of the weaker ones in the series--
The Penultimate Peril--won a Quill Award this week.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
T.D. Jakes and Not Easily Broken
Christian fiction can be a difficult thing to write. There are few authors throughout history who have done it well.
C.S. Lewis is perhaps the most prominent example of a writer who managed to write great fiction that was strongly theological in purpose. There has also been such writings as
Marlowe's
Faustus, Dante's Divine Comedy, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and Dostoyvesky's Crime and Punishment.
Generally speaking, though, Christian fiction, especially Christian popular fiction falls prey to stereotypes and shallowness. Characters become moral lessons rather than real people. Situations are manipulated to fit a sermon rather than occurring naturally with the themes subtly woven in.
That said, there have been modern Christian authors that I've enjoyed. I grew up reading Catherine Marshall whose novels were tinged with autobiographical memoirs and history. For a long time, I enjoyed Grace Livingston Hill, though eventually all her books started to sound the same and they were rather dated.
In His Steps by Charles Sheldon was another book that I treasured.
In more recent years, I've been charmed by the writings of my former journalism professor, Joseph Bentz, in particular his science fiction novel. I was also blown away by Alan David Justice's
The Final Bow.
For a long while, though, I've been soured on most Christian fiction writing because it has felt so lifeless or polemic. I won't go near the Left Behind series for reasons theological that are better discussed on a different sort of blog.
Last month I decided to make another foray into Christian fiction with a book written by a minister prominent in both spiritual and political realms.
Bishop T.D. Jakes is one of those talented men who when he does something, he does it well. He's a singer who has been nominated for a Grammy, a bestselling novelist, and the minister of a large and growing church. A highly intelligent and educated man, he began college at age 15 and eventually earned a bachelor's, masters, and a doctorate.
His novel,
Not Easily Broken, was an enjoyable read. It's not something that will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greats mentioned in the first paragraph of this entry, but it was entertaining and explored issues that face married couples. While it is in no way a life-changing book, neither would I hesitate to pick up another one of Jakes' books.
Here is an excerpt from the
review at Book Help Web:
T.D. Jakes is a man who knows his audience and writes directly and unapologetically for them. His latest book, Not Easily Broken, is a novel sure to appeal to Promise Keepers, Dobson devotees, and evangelical Christians everywhere.
Would that more books written for that audience could be done with the skill and sensitivity that T.D. Jakes shows.
Not Easily Broken is the story of a marriage. When the book opens, the marriage is 15 years old and Clarisse and Dave aren't exactly in a cozy, comfortable place. Neither, though, are they in a terrible place. Rather, they have failed to nurture their marriage and find themselves increasingly at odds with one another. Clarisse wants Dave to be more ambitious and supportive of her career; Dave wants Clarisse to understand him better and to let him protect her and help her the way he wants to. Dave wants kids; Clarisse is certain it's a trick to destroy her career.
Amidst this uneasy tension, they are in a car accident which leaves Clarisse's leg badly broken. She drops deep into depression and pushes away all of Dave's attempts to help her. He grows increasingly frustrated and then gives up trying. Matters compound when he connects with a single mom, Julie, Clarisse's physical therapist. What starts out as a mentoring relationship with her son grows into an attraction.
Not Easily Broken takes a tender look at a marriage and the difficulties a marriage can have. Jakes takes the readers through detailed sessions with both the physical therapist and the family therapist, accurately capturing the emotions and reservations that the characters feel. He's also able to communicate some important truths about relationships and interdependence without sounding preachy.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Michael Connelly and Echo Park
This past Monday saw the release of
Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch book,
Echo Park. It's currently sitting in the top 10 bestsellers over at Amazon--a feat that fiction has had a
difficult time doing for the past several months. In fact, as far as fiction goes at Amazon, it's second only to
John Grisham's The Innocent Man. The
New York Times list won't measure it until next week, but Connelly's paperback release of
The Lincoln Lawyer is the #1 paperback bestseller at the Times.
All in all, a pretty good week for Connelly and his hardboiled Los Angeles detective.
He also took some time to participate in an
interview with Book Help Web in which he talks about
Echo Park and Harry Bosch.
Here's an excerpt:
The intentional theme to the whole series is the exploration of the equation of darkness. By that I mean the idea that if you go into darkness to carry out your mission, then some of that darkness is going to get into you. So the question is, what do you do with it? How do you keep yourself safe?
Whether you're new to the series or have been a fan since day 1,
Echo Park is a good read and a great addition to the police detective genre.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Hamlet
Hamlet was the first
Shakespeare play I ever saw performed. My high school literature class took a trip to Ann Arbor where we saw the play. I don't recall now whether it was the university performing it or some local group coming through.
I do remember that I was rather bored by it.
In fact, despite plays being my favorite form of literature even in high school, I didn't start out as a fan of Shakespeare. I didn't have the patience to read him slowly or out loud. It wasn't until years later when my husband began to read Shakespeare to me and then to perform in his plays that I realized how incredible the Master Dramatist really was. Since then, I've fallen completely in love with his works and try to see as much of it as I can.
It helps that my husband regularly performs in the state Shakespeare festival and that as a local theater reviewer, I get to attend many performances.
So while I typically see anywhere from three to five productions of Shakepeare each year, I hadn't seen Hamlet since that first production twenty years ago. That is, not until last year.
The 2005-2006 theater season was definitely my year for Hamlet. Through the course of the season, I saw four different productions of Hamlet, some of them more than once. Each production had its own interpretations, underscoring what very rich text this best of all Shakespearean tragedies is.
It began last fall when a colleague of my husband invited us out to see him perform the title role at Grand Valley State University. It was a stunning production, one accompanied by chamber music and that included everything—including Polonius’ spy and all of the Fortinbras material.
A month later, my husband and I headed out to Kalamazoo to see the identical twin of that same colleague perform the same role. The play was cut differently and performed in a more intimate setting, but it was an incredible experience to see two such excellent performances so close together and by people who looked so much alike.
Then, partly inspired by a visit from the colleague mentioned above, the fifth and sixth grade Montessori students that my husband teaches begged to be allowed to do Hamlet for their end-of-year production. Who is going to turn down a request like that? So they performed Hambits—Scenes from Hamlet.
Finally, this summer my husband performed in a production of Hamlet for the Michigan Shakespeare Festival, playing the roles of Bernardo, Player Queen, and various others. We brought our Montessori students to see the show in a one-day camp experience.
Unlike my first experience which left me listless, each of these performances were stunning and each one brought the text alive to me in some new way. I understand now why Hamlet is considered Shakespeare's best work and I hope that it will continue to be a part of my life throughout the years.
If you haven't read it or seen it since high school (assuming you've already left those hallowed halls), consider taking another turn through it. It might surprise you how it improves with age (yours, not its).
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Marina Lewycka's history is more of the heart than of tractors
When
Marina Lewycka's novel first came out, it was apparently miscategorized in some bookstores and placed in the agricultural section. A somewhat understandable mistake given the unusual title of
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. Now, granted, the final word should have been a title as it isn't a foreign language book, but grammatical errors have been known to sneak into titles before.
I read this book over the summer on the recommendation of
FSB Associates, the folks who are hosting the
Love of Reading Online Book Fair that ends today (you have gone to visit there, haven't you?). It was a wonderful recommendation and both my husband and I got a great deal of enjoyment out of the way this book was written. My full review is now posted at Book Help Web. Here's a teaser for you:
There may be tractors in Marina Lewycka's book, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, but it isn't a book about tractors. And even though the book does, in fact, give the history of tractors, it isn't a history book.
Rather, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a story about family. The history of tractors is a parallel story to that of Nadezhda, Vera, and their elderly father, Kolya.
At first glance, it seems nothing more than the most mundane of themes. What could possibly be exciting about tractors? How could the story of an old man falling for a pretty, young, blonde, gold digger be anything but stereotypical and trite?
Yet both these stories hold surprises and hidden appeal. They take unexpected turns that make it worthwhile to look beyond the surface. No, things aren't always as they appear. More importantly, even when things are as they appear, they aren't always motivated by what we assume is the motivator.
Read more here...
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Love of Reading
Like most parents, I was eager for my son to learn to read. Ringing in my head were the stories from both my parents and my in-laws about the age at which myself and my husband had learned to read. My sister-in-law regaled us with tales about how her daughter--only a year older than our son--had taken to reading like a cat to catnip.
Our son, however, was holding out. He insisted that he wasn't going to learn to read until he was seven. Given that the lad is as strong-willed as both his parents put together, there didn't seem much that we could do about this and we didn't want to turn reading into a source of argument or heartache.
So we did what parents do. We read to him nightly, we let him see us reading, and we filled his room with books that matched his interests.
But while we said nothing further to him, I still worried. What would happen if our son didn't like to read? What would life be like without reading as a primary source of entertainment? How would our son learn about the world around him if he couldn't read or veiwed it as an arduous chore? How would he stretch his imagination and learn to empathize with others?
It was beyond my ability to imagine life without reading. I can't remember ever not being able to read and books were often my best friends throughout childhood. When I go back now and read the books of my youth, it is like being reunited with an old friend--a friend who has memories of me as well as my having memories of it.
Growing up, I remember wondering whether it would be possible to find a career in which I could do nothing but read. In that way, I have indeed been richly blessed. Working as a copy editor on a busy daily news desk, it was part of my duty to read everything that came across the wire and determine whether it was important enough to get into the paper. Later, as an editor, I got to read every day and try to make what I was reading more useful for other readers. In a way, it's been a dream of a career.
Now, for the past six years, I've been a book reviewer, once again taking deep pleasure in devouring books of all sorts. If left to my own devices, I'm likely to be curled up with a historical mystery, juvenile fiction, or fantasy novels. Thankfully, I've not been left to my own devices and instead I am reading a wide variety of books in order to review them. This past summer brought some particularly delicious reads.
Kim Edwards' The Memory Keeper's Daughter was completely stunning. I was almost too in awe of her to
interview her for Book Help Web. Then
Kevin Clash's
My Life as a Furry Red Monster was a delightfully optimistic read--one that bolstered my spirits while opening a window onto a segment of the performing arts world that I knew only a little about. Then I ended the summer with the wry, humorous work of
Ken Jennings: Brainiac, a memoir that was far funnier than I was expecting it to be. (And if you check back later this month, we'll be running an interview with him as well.)
Nearly 16 years ago, I decided I didn't want nor need a television. It's not that I thought television was evil or that I didn't enjoy much of the programming on it. But I saw it as a time robber--something that took time away from playing games with friends, spending precious moments with my husband, or curling up with my beloved books.
My husband is as avid a reader as I am, indeed, he reads books much faster than I do and I can polish off a novel in a single evening's reading if the novel is compelling enough (certainly once I started, I wasn't able to put down either
The Memory Keeper's Daughter or Michael Connelly's
Echo Park until I'd turned the last page).
So how was it that our son could resist reading?
Well, I needn't have worried. He was true to his word and started reading after he turned seven. A year and a half later, he's polishing off
Harry Potter and
Peter and the Star Catchers novels and begging for more. He was even able to read to me from
Macbeth and
Twelfth Night.
And so I'm at ease, knowing that whatever else happens in his life, he'll always have the companionship of books to act as a compass and a friend.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Books: Do they isolate or connect us?
Several years ago, I was working on a writing project with a colleague in another state and staying at her home. I remember feeling shocked when she told me she hadn't read a book for pleasure in nearly 15 years. I'm one of those people who get grumpy if I haven't read for a couple of days. I think I'd be impossible to live with if I tried to go a week without a book.
My friend went on to express concerns about her daughter who, she felt, was reading too much. I had to ask for clarification on this statement, because I didn't understand how someone, especially a 13-year-old girl, could read too much. I felt almost as though I had entered the Twilight Zone. She went on to say that the punishment she used most frequently with her daughter was to take away her leisure reading time.
While I'm not one to interfere or criticize another person's parenting techniques I had to question this. Why was reading a problem?
The answer was that she said reading was escapism and isolated her daughter from other people. It robbed her of social opportunities that she ought to be taking advantage of.
It was a different perspective and one I spent the next couple years thinking about. Was there something wrong with me because I had spent my whole childhood reading? Would I be a healthier person had I not read so much as a teenager?
During this past year, I realized very firmly what my answers were to those questions. For you see, I don't think that reading is a solitary pasttime. Certainly, you're alone when you do it. However, reading is something that helps us connect with other people. They help us to understand each other and the world around us. They let us explore ways of communicating with each other and let us peek into the thought processes of people who are different from ourselves.
Also, the more we read, the more likely we are to be able to connect with people who have read the same things that we have. I sat and listened to a group of my friends banter the other night. We're a fairly well-read group, and the pop culture references that were being bandied about were far more often from books than from television or movies. The things that we've read form a bond between us that molds our language and spices our conversation.
Even those books that we don't have in common provide fertile ground for discussions as we share with each other new ideas we've encountered or particular styles that tickle our fancy.
If we didn't read, we'd have far less in common with each other.
Now, with the Internet, books are connecting us even more. Book lovers from around the globe are able to connect with each other over their favorite books. Then can analyze in detail books in a series and share each other's guesses about what comes next. We meet on bulletin boards, in online book clubs, and at each other's blogs. We visit book sites and review sites and glean all the information we can so that when we meet, we have even more to talk about.
It's one of the reasons why I've been excited about the
Love of Reading Online Book Fair that's running this week. It's yet another way that book lovers are connecting with each other and proving once again that books don't isolate us and rob us of golden opportunities. Instead, they bring us together and make our connections with our fellow human beings all the stronger.
Banned Book Week is over
Last week was banned book week.
It's something I thought about blogging, but never really resolved my ambiguous feelings about it. I tend to be of the opinion that it's more complex than the sound bites sometimes make it out to be.
First, what does it really mean to ban a book? From what I've seen, a book can make it on the banned list for being removed from an elementary school library. Yet, there are some books that don't belong in an elementary school library. If a young child is really ready for the heavier stuff, he or she can get it from the public library. However, who would really want D.H. Lawerence on a fourth grade reading list?
Now granted, I think we often underestimate young readers. Or worse yet, we try to protect them from things that they shouldn't be protected from. One of the valuable functions of art--whether it is literature, drama, music, or paintings, is that it lets people experience unsafe things in a safe setting. It provides people the opportunity to explore consequences of actions without actually having to experience those consequences. It's why I cringe when I hear parents say they don't want their junior high children reading anything violent. Whyever not? Isn't it better they explore violence in the context of black ink on white pages than to have to experience it with no foreknowledge?
That said, I think it wise to consider carefully what we offer in our classrooms even while allowing people of all ages absolute freedom in what they read outside of the classroom. There are times I'd like to ban some of the horrid Disney books that are riddled with grammatical errors, but I'll limit myself to refusing to buy them or read them aloud. That said, if one of them were being offered as curriculum in a local school, I might find myself objecting.
There is a difference between censorship and gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is something that ought to be done more often so that we can encourage high quality reading experiences.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Sheila Williams and Communicating Online
Perhaps the most frequent question I get here at Book Help Web is how to contact an author. Most of the time, I don't have contact information that I can give out. I can only recommend that the person contact the author's publisher or send an e-mail through his or her Website.
It's one of the reasons it is encouraging to have more and more authors who are communicating with their readers through e-mails and online communication.
Sheila Williams talks about her love for e-mails and her online readers at the
Love of Reading book fair.
I found it interesting that though she gets hundreds of e-mails, she's received only three letters through the mail in the past five years. We just don't write letters as often as we used to. We're far more spontaneous and think nothing of taking two minutes to write an author just to tell him or her how much we liked (or didn't) what we read.
I'm not terribly suprised that Sheila Williams is so open to e-mail. I read her book
Girls Most Likely earlier this year. It was a book that demonstrated what a warm and personable person its author was. She has a beautiful writing style that was warm and engaging. Here's what I had to say earlier this year:
Sheila Williams' Girls Most Likely demands an immediate adjective. Something like elegant or compelling or soulful. Perhaps gripping or mesmerizing or enthralling. But while all of those adjectives would work, they must be rejected as inadequate.
Girls Most Likely is, indeed, something special. Perhaps that is because it appears to be one thing while slowly revealing itself to be something more. On one level, it is a perfectly ordinary book. It tells the story of four women, four friends, from when they meet in fifth grade to their 30th high school reunion. They maintain a fast friendship, albeit with some pretty major fissures, protecting each other and each other's secrets.
On another level, it's a richly lyrical and metaphorical book which looks with great affection upon four decades in the lives of four archetypical examples of womanly success. It's a book of ideas and of relationships. It's a book about our definitions of success and how we hollow ourselves out in pursuit of those elusive pictures.
If you haven't had the chance, I'd encourage you to check out Sheila Williams, either at the book fair or in her pages--or better yet, at both.
More Unfortunate Events
Only 11 more days until
The End. Are you ready?
We're almost ready here at Book Help Web. Take a look for yourself:
It's hard not to love a children's book which uses "ersatz" in the title and then proceeds to very clearly define exactly what it means. Not that it is coldly defined in Webster-ese. Rather it is defined Lemony Snicket style, with humor and repeated plot illustrations making Book the Sixth in A Series of Unfortunate Events an incredibly fun vocabulary lesson.
No one is safe from the wicked satire of Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket). Every one of the 12 books thus far in the Series of Unfortunate Events turns a satiric spotlight on some institution, person, or organization. In The Vile Village, it's Hillary Clinton's turn on the hot seat.
While hospitals are meant to be places of healing and aid, it's not unusual for their patients to come out feeling somewhat hostile. This is especially true for people who arrive at the hospital in a van filled with interminably cheerful and useless volunteers while fleeing from a Vile Village of crow devotees who want to execute you on trumped-up murder charges. You might feel even more hostile if you were drafted into a filing job in which you were forbidden to read anything (even the file on you) and then an actor disguised your siblings as surgeons and tried to force them to saw your head off.
Despite the very serious themes and the pessimistic outlook, it is a well-plotted, well-written book that continues to pose challenging questions while staying highly entertaining.
The Slippery Slope is one of the better books in the series. It has a quick moving plot, lots of quirkiness, and explores difficult questions of ethics and morality. In all, it's a winner.
And there will be more to come this week and next!
