A book published the year you were born

Title: Love Story

Author: Erich Segal
Publication date: 1970

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

The first trick in reading a book published the year you were born is finding a book published the year you were born. My limited options were:

• Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.
• Jonathon Livingston Seagull
• Love Story

Once I'd selected Love Story, I had to find a copy of it. I was sure the copy that had been on my mother's bookcase during my childhood would still be on said bookcase. After all, I know where my copy of Are you there, God? is. I was wrong. My local library, which owns Oliver's Story, didn't have it. And it's not available in Kindle format. Thanks to interlibrary loan, I was able to procure a copy. I am pretty sure, the copy was a first edition from 1970, deckled edges and all.

131 pages and two hours later, I was crying quietly, having finished reading the book.

As a child of the 70s, I've seen the film. My mother loved Ryan O'Neal and my father loved Ali MacGraw (he was likely impressed that she knew Steve McQueen) so it's only natural.

The book read almost like a screenplay of the film. The biggest difference being the book has Oliver's first person narration (I don't remember that being the case in the film.) But as I read the book, I followed along with the actors' respective voices in my head. I don't remember there being hockey in the movie. Maybe O'Neal can't skate. There sure was a helluva lot of hockey in the book. Maybe I've blocked the hockey out for self preservation.

Once again, this review is a lot more about me and a little bit about a book. The advantage is, it's my blog, not Segal's, so that's allowed. Plus, when the book has 131 pages, how much is there to say about it? I really liked Segal's dialogue. I liked the book. Certainly more than Jonathon Livingston Seagull, which was also on my mother's bookcase during my childhood. She won't remember. But I do.

 Four stars

A nonfiction book

Title: Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness
Author: Susannah Cahalan
Publication date: 2012

The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess.                -- William F. Allman

Susannah Cahalan is a young reporter at the New York Post when she begins to have episodes of paranoia followed by seizures. The author attacks the telling of her story the way an investigative reporter would do so: reading her medical history, watching hospital footage, interviewing those around her including her medical team. These are things she must do if she is to piece together the weeks of her illness as she has little memory of her own to fall back on.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness recounts Cahalan's descent into madness moving from an independent functioning professional to a woman who can't be left alone to retrieve a cup of coffee. During her illness, she is surrounded by her divorced parents, their respective spouses, her own boyfriend and a host of friends.

Having no prior history of mental health problems nor a history of seizures, Cahalan's medical team grows and grows as her parents struggle to find answers unwilling to accept the first diagnosis: that their daughter is a fall-down drunk (which she isn't). The fact that her mother and stepfather are big fans of the show House, M.D. is not lost on Susannah in the telling of her story. Those familiar with the show will see similarities. When the doctor begins to explore autoimmune diseases as a cause, I found myself thinking "it's not lupus!" just as Hugh Laurie always did on House. (It's not, by the way.)

Despite the medical jargon, the author tells her story in a manner that is easy to follow. I read the book in two days and found it very compelling.

When neurons begin to play nonstop, out of tune, and all at once because of disease, trauma, tumor, lack of sleep, or even alcohol withdrawal, the cacophonous result can be a seizure.

The message within the telling of the story is the importance of the caregivers and the support team. To her credit, Cahalan delves into this component of her story wondering how many patients are misdiagnosed and institutionalized every year. She recognizes her parents' influence on her care and even touches on the total cost of her care.

Three stars

A book at the bottom of your to-read list

Title: Wonder
Author: R.J. Palacio
Publication date: 2012

I've been curious about Wonder for about as long as I've been aware of it. The cover art is simplistic and intriguing (too bad I'd already use "book based entirely on its cover!)

My name is August, by the way. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

At age 10, August enters school for the first time. He's been home schooled for his entire life due to surgical schedules and recoveries that made keeping up with a regular school year an unnecessary challenge. August is not a special needs student. A fact I really appreciated about this book. Genetics played havoc on him and resulted in craniofacial abnormalities that render most he encounters speechless. For this reason, the prospect of going to school has not been appealing.

This novel alternates sections/chapters in the voices of different characters. I found the chapters from August's sister Via's point of view to be among the best. The book also explores the thoughts of tertiary characters like Via's boyfriend:

olivia reminds me of a bird sometimes, how her feathers get all ruffled when she's mad. and when she's fragile like this, she's a little lost bird looking for its nest.
so i give her my wing to hide under.

Wonder is the first children's book I've read this year. I loved its honesty and its ability to explore the inner workings of tween minds not to mention giving us a pretty realistic glance at fifth grade.

Four stars

Next challenge: A nonfiction book

A banned book

Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Publication date: 1953

I remember the newspapers dying like huge moths. No one wanted them back. No one missed them.

The idea that Fahrenheit 451, a book about a time when all books are banned, would be banned is the very definition of ironic. Having read it, I'm not sure what was found objectionable about it though I have read stories that it was censored for language (use of the words "hell" and "damn" - gasp!).

Guy Montag is a fireman. At a time when homes have been fireproofed, Montag is sent out to burn books, which are banned and viewed as dangerous. Entertainment comes instead from television screens the size of a wall with the best experience affordable to those who have a wall-size screen on multiple walls in a room, a surround screen effect.

I found this novel hard to follow. It's a relatively short story (under 200 pages) but I found myself re-reading passages and, on more than one occasion, falling asleep while attempting to read. There were specific plot lines that confused me, "No wait, what just happened?" I joked with a friend that perhaps I simply cannot fathom a world without books and therefore was resistant to the story.

I love that the challenge has a banned book as a requirement. Banning books is so silly in this day and age. Why do people even bother? Read banned books. To learn more, go to ala.org.

P.S. Sorry for the clunky review.

Two stars

Next challenge: A book at the bottom of your to-read list

A book with a love triangle

Title: Loving Frank
Author: Nancy Horan
Publication date: 2007

I wasn't eager to complete this challenge. Particularly when my hope to use "The Princess Bride" was thwarted by my friends who insisted Humperdink didn't love anyone. I settled on Loving Frank because I'd purchased it a few years back as, you guessed it, a Kindle Daily Deal.

Loving Frank is the fictionalized story of the real love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and his one-time client Mrs. Edwin Cheney, also known as Mamah Borthwick Cheney. Both abandoned their families (spouses and young children) to carry on a love affair across three continents.

Author Nancy Horan does an admirable job of getting into the psyche of Borthwick. Her telling of the story does bring to life the issues of the day. While I'd known Wright had carried on a years-long affair, I really knew very little of his life. Much to my surprise, the Chicago newspapers covered the scandal of the affair in depth so Horan had newspaper accounts from which to draw her story.

Two years in a child's life is the distance between stars, she thought.

Cheney did abandon her children for two years. Not just leave the household but the continent moving to Europe with Wright and later on her own to pursue a career as a translator for Ellen Key, a well-known European feminist whom she had befriended.

It is likely that I would never have loved this book. I admire the author's telling of the story. In fact, I think she did a phenomenal job. But I just can't feel sympathetic for characters like Mamah Borthwick and Frank Lloyd Wright, who believed his own genius and happiness were more important than all else -- including his own children.

My reading of this book should be captioned "bad things happen to readers who Google." My unquenchable desire to know all things drove me to read up on Frank Lloyd Wright's life on the internet. As I said, bad things happened ... If you are inclined to read Loving Frank, don't go Googling on your own. Being spoiled on the outcome of this affair truly made it difficult to get through the story.

Next challenge: A banned book

A book that takes place in your hometown

Title: Detroit: An American Autopsy
Author: Charlie LeDuff
Publication date: 2013

Detroit reached a peak population of nearly 1.9 million people in the 1950s and was 83 percent white. Now Detroit has fewer than 700,000 people, is 83 percent black and is the only American city that has surpassed a million people only to contract below that threshold. 

The prospect of reading a book that takes place in my hometown was one I was excited about. As a native Detroiter, there are many stories fictional and nonfictional to consider. And yet I still ended up reading Charlie LeDuff's book.

LeDuff is also a native Detroiter. He returned to Motown after a Pulitzer-prize winning stint at The New York Times to work at The Detroit News around the same time I left home for the first time and headed to West Michigan. I was intrigued to read a local's take on the plight of my city.

At the end of the day, the Detroiter may be the most important American there is because no one knows better than he that we're all standing at the edge of the shaft.

I wasn't living in Detroit when LeDuff moved from newspapers to television coverage so I haven't been subject to his personality or celebrity before reading his book. Sure, I've read his work in the News maybe even in the Times but this book is part memoir part reporter's notebook. And while I often enjoyed his observations and some of his storytelling I could really have done without his bigoted and racist references. Noting a likely mugger had gold fillings "like the Mexicans get" and referring to his brother's coworker as a retard and others as "hillfolk" or "hillbillies." Just not my cup of tea.

I was acting like an asshole because deep inside that chasm I could hear my own echo: You are an asshole.

Perhaps what was missing from LeDuff's book for me was insight on what is needed to restore Detroit. Perhaps I'm just not ready to consign my city to death. And, perhaps LeDuff really just is an asshole.

Two stars

Next challenge: A book with a love triangle

A book with a color in the title

Title: The Red Tent
Author: Anita Diamant
Publication date: 1998

It is the rare (but cherished book) that paints a tapestry of such vivid locations, characters and storylines that you can picture yourself in their midst as the pages turn. The Red Tent is such a book for me.

Anita Diamant’s novel crafts the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah; sister to Joseph and 11 other brothers in Canaan more than 2,000 years ago. Dinah serves as narrator telling first the story of her father and his courtship of her aunt, his inevitable marriage to her own mother and her mother's three sisters. The second part of the story is Dinah's own story and she tells of her childhood playing with Joseph and being adored by her mother and aunties as the only girl child of Jacob's tribe. The final story encompasses Dinah's years in Egypt.

Despite taking place more than 2,000 years ago, The Red Tent, for me, was a story of feminism at its core. The red tent itself is the physical location where all of the women congregate during that most womanly time of the month. The women of this time were certainly not equal to the men. However, the women within Jacob's tribe asserted themselves more so than would be expected of that time. It is Diamant's skill as a writer and Dinah's voice as a narrator that make me pause to consider that this is a work of fiction.

Though it was published 17 years, The Red Tent remains as powerful today as it was when it was first released. If I hadn't been pushing the limits of my typical book picks to satisfy this reading challenge -- and if a friend hadn't thrust the book in my hands with the decree "you have to read this" -- I would not have experienced The Red Tent.

Five stars

Next challenge: A book that takes place in your hometown

A book with nonhuman characters

Title: A Sudden Light
Author: Garth Stein
Publication date: 2014

This book was a library find that I previously had no plans on reading. But there it was on the Express bookcase of my local library. ("Express" means it's a new release and you can't renew it so there's built-in pressure.)

Trevor Riddell, 14, is our storyteller. His father, Jones Riddell, takes him from their New England home to visit his paternal grandfather at the Seattle house in which the elder Riddell grew up. Trevor's mission is to repair his family and, to do so, he plans to uncover the secrets of Jones' childhood, the reason why Jones was sent to boarding school out east just days after his mother's death leaving behind a young sister, Serena, then 11.

I didn't know what I was doing. I was going by instinct; I was following my intuition. I'd read enough fairy tales to know that, if my heart was true, I'd be able to do the right thing for all of us; I could save us all. And I'd read enough Kafka to know that, if I did wrong, it might lead to the end of all things.

Grandpa Samuel and Serena live in Riddell House on The North Estate, 200+ acres of virgin forest. It is Serena's wish to convince her father to sell the land (worth millions) so she can travel the world. The problem is Grandpa Samuel doesn't want to sell. He wants to stay in the only home he has ever known, in part, because he believes the ghost of his late wife Isobel remains there.

Trevor uncovers Riddell House's secrets (hidden hallways and rooms) while discovering what created the rift within his family. He is aided in his efforts by Benjamin Riddell, his late great uncle, our "nonhuman character." Benjamin comes to Trevor via dreams, handwritten messages and even face-to-face visits.

It was impossible not to fall in love with Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain. I devoured this book in just four days (400 pages) with the same intensity that I read Racing though with admittedly fewer tears.

Some of my favorite books over the last few years (The Round House, The Goldfinch) have had adolescent male narrators. This book fits neatly into that category.

While I was able to pick up on many of the story's secrets before they were revealed to the reader, Stein kept me surprised at a handful of plot twists I did not see coming. I already miss Clever Trevor.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book with a color in the title

A book written by a female author

Title: Dept. of Speculation
Author: Jenny Offill
Publication date: 2014

Dept. of Speculation is the latest pick from my stellar book club. We'll be discussing it at our May meeting next week but I'm getting ahead of myself and blogging while the book is still relatively fresh in my mind.

Jenny Offill's slim 177-page novel is the stream of consciousness story of a marriage told through the voice of "the wife" about "the husband" and later "the baby."

I feel about this book the way many people feel about Jackson Pollack's paintings: anyone could do it. But I'm enough of a writer/reader to know that it's not actually true.

There are endearing things about Dept. of Speculation. I feel the narrator's love for her family and her hopes as well. I appreciated what a quick read it was (less than three hours for me personally). But I think it just wasn't for me.

Perhaps my book club will pull more information out of me, in which case, I'll return to this entry and expand it.

One star

Next challenge: A book with nonhuman characters

A memoir

Title: Just Kids
Author: Patti Smith
Publication date: 2010

In Just Kids, Patti Smith takes us back with her to the New York City of the 1960s. Not just to NYC but to the Chelsea Hotel, where she lived for several years with her longtime friend and long ago lover Robert Mapplethorpe. Theirs was a time of creation and art and love.

Patti tells their story with fondness and focus remembering seemingly countless conversations between herself and Mapplethorpe as well as many others within their inner circle. The writer in me wonders if she kept a journal throughout her life though she makes no mention of doing so within the book.

While reading Just Kids, I wrote myself a note: "I could get through this book faster if I didn't stop to Google a name every three pages!" This observation is both true and one of the reasons I so enjoyed this book. In his sheer determination to be a successful artist, Robert Mapplethorpe dragged Patti Smith with him night after night to Max's Kansas City in the hopes of running into Andy Warhol and making those important connections needed to keep in the game.

One of the things I find most admirable about Patti Smith after reading Just Kids is her determination and perseverance. She arrived in NYC with a dream and the address of a friend who'd moved to town before she did. She soon learns that the friend has since moved and is unable to find him for some time. She lives on the streets before a chance meeting with Robert takes them on a path together.

She tells stories of eating lettuce sandwiches and saving nickels for the vending machine, which would provide her next meal. Through it all, she shared it with Robert.

Smith won the National Book Award for this memoir. She's recently announced she'll publish a second memoir, presumably on her life with her late husband Fred Sonic Smith of the MC5. I'm sure I'll be reading it.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book by a female author

A graphic novel

Title: Maus: A Survivor's Tale (My Father Bleeds History) & Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began
Author: Art Spiegelman
Publication date(s): 1986 and 1991

The graphic novel is not a format I've explored before the reading challenge prompted me to do so. While I toyed with the idea of visiting an old friend (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), I believe I was always destined to read Maus. I was working in a library when Maus was first published back during my high school years. I remember the news stories and the buzz about it but hadn't read it until now. 

Maus and its sequel Maus II are the biographical stories of Vladek Spiegelman told and illustrated by his son, cartoonist Art Spiegelman. Vladek begins his story during his days as a young man in Poland in the 1930s. During a series of visits between father and son, Vladek tells Art of meeting and marrying Art's mother in pre-war Poland, of the successful businesses he built up and of Art's maternal grandparents' wealth and opulent lifestyle and then the war ... 

The cartoonist draws the Jews (including Vladek and Art) as mice, the Nazis are cats and the non-Jews Poles and Germans alike are pigs.

The first book details Vladek's efforts to shield his wife Anja and her family from the worst of the early years of the Polish invasion. The family hides for many months before they find themselves at the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In one particularly powerful panel, Vladek begs his wife to carry on:

"No Darling! To die, it's easy ... but you have to struggle for life!"

 I raced through the first book in just a few hours and found myself needing to know the rest of the Spiegelmans' story. How did they come to be in Rego Park, New York in the 1970s? 

The second book picks up where the first ended. Vladek tells the story to his impatient son who is

eager to capture it all in the comic. During the telling of the story, we also come to understand the relationship between father and son. Vladek is remarried (having buried Art's mother following her suicide many years earlier) and has a difficult relationship with his second wife, Mala, also a Holocaust survivor.

I found myself feeling sorry for the elder Spiegelman who seemed to want nothing more than to spend time with his adult son. But Art was bothered by his father's requests of his time (help him put in the storm windows, balance the checkbook, do the marketing) and seemed to want nothing more than to pry the story of war from his father. It was quite heart breaking in fact. 

I've read four books during the challenge that deal with different aspects of World War II (three of which were memoirs from Holocaust survivors). It still shocks and outrages me. Though it took me nearly 30 years, I'm glad I finally found time for Mr. Spiegelman's story. 

Three stars

Next challenge: A book by a female author

A book set in the future

Title: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Publication date: 2014

Hell is the absence of the people you long for.

The premise of Station Eleven really intrigued me: dystopian world, traveling Shakespeare troupe, all taking place in and surrounding my home Great Lakes State. Somehow these things were not enough for me. I wanted more and in the wanting, fell disappointed with what I received. 

Emily St. John Mandel weaves a story connecting a hodgepodge of characters during a time of great sadness and desperation. The story begins in presumably present day Toronto at a theater performance of King Lear. Within hours, the city is thrust into a pandemic flu and survival takes on a new meaning.

The story fast forwards 20 years ahead after the so-called Georgian Flu has wiped out most of the population. We are introduced to a number of characters including Kirsten, a young actress with the Traveling Symphony who happened to be on stage for that performance of King Lear two decades earlier. 

Station Eleven forces the reader to think about the not-so-romantic dystopian future. The one without electricity, mass transit, communication systems and stocked food stores. Before reading Station Eleven, I didn't know that auto gasoline goes bad after three years. (My husband, who knows of such mysteries, assures me this is true.)

Perhaps my dystopian stories are too tied up within trilogies (Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched) for me to willingly say goodbye to the characters after a single installment. What I wanted after reading Station Eleven was more. But just as the finale of The Sopranos what I learned is that life, inevitably, goes on. 

Three stars

Next challenge: A graphic novel

A book with antonyms in the title

Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Author: Jamie Ford
Publication date: 2009

The truth is I had some anxiety about this prompt. And when Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet popped up on a list of books available as a Book Club in a Bag from my local library, it seemed perfect. The fact that one of my fellow club members was reading the book when I suggested it and a second had read it a few months earlier, sealed the deal.

I've read several books about World War II (including one for this challenge) but I've never read a story about the Japanese-American experience of internment. It's certainly not a proud part of American history.
.
Our story centers around Henry Lee, a Chinese-American man living and raised in Seattle. The story flips back and forth between present time (in this case 1986) and the past (1942-1945). Young Henry is surviving in two worlds: that of his Chinese parents' traditional household and the white prep school he's been granted a scholarship to attend. With anti-Japanese sentiment at an all-time high, and Americans happy to pass that discrimination on to all Asians, Henry is taunted and traumatized by schoolyard bullies daily.

One day, a second scholarship student arrives at the school. Henry befriends the Japanese-American girl Keiko and their relationship make for the flashback chapters of the book.

The book draws its name, in part, from the Panama Hotel, in which many families stored their personal possessions when the "evacuation" to internment camps began. Years later, the hotel gains a new owner who discovers a basement full of memories of a time forgotten by many ... but not forgotten by Henry Lee.

As he left the hotel, Henry looked west to where the sun was setting, burnt sienna flooding the horizon. It reminded in that time was short, but that beautiful endings could still be found at the end of old dreary days.

While I enjoyed this book, I've read so many wonderful books in recent weeks that I find myself holding my reading to a high standard. In another time, I might rate it higher. But I would certainly recommend it.

Three and a half stars

Next challenge: TBD

A book of short stories

A book of short stories

Title: Trigger Warner: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Author: Neil Gaiman
Publication date:  2015

My first exposure to Neil Gaiman’s work came just last year when I read American Gods on the recommendation of a friend. I couldn’t put it down. So when I came upon this brand new release just sitting on the library shelf asking to be borrowed, I didn’t resist.

Oddly, I’m not much of a short story reader or I hadn’t been until this year. This is the third collection of short stories I’ve read in 2015. I find that I like both the pace and the variety.

Trigger Warner includes both original works and previously published stories from Gaiman. There’s no theme per se but the stories work as a collection in my opinion. The stories range in length from three to as many as 40 pages. Gaiman uses different literary devices in many stories including writing several in verse and one in a chronological calendar form (not my favorite).

My favorite stories were Click-Clack the Rattlebag, a short five pages; and The Sleeper and the Spindle, a longer story of 20+ pages. The latter was first included in an anthology of fairy tales and is a reimagining of Snow White with a little Sleeping Beauty for good measure.

“We were approaching the top of the hill. It was dusk. The sky was the color of wine, now, and the clouds in the west glowed with the light of the setting sun …” 

– A Lunar Labyrinth

A few of the fun surprises in this collection included a story inspired by David Bowie The Return of the Thin White Duke and a story about Shadow, our hero from American Gods.

I’m already planning to read more by Gaiman, which is one of the greatest compliments a reviewer can pay an author.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book with antonyms in the title

A mystery or thriller

A mystery or thriller

Title: The Girl on the Train
Author: Paula Hawkins
Publication date: 2015

It’s easy to understand why The Girl on the Train is being compared to Gone Girl. Both revolve around a storyline that is not quite clear even to those who are telling it. Both are fast-paced and hard to put down. And while I hated nearly every character in Gone Girl, I have less animosity for those in The Girl on the Train.

The story begins with Rachel who commutes via train into London each day to work at a public relations firm. From her seat on the train, Rachel watches the lives of the people who live near the train tracks even creating back stories for many.

We come to know two of the woman who are the subjects of Rachel’s voyeurism: Anna and Megan. Megan lives in Rachel’s “favorite house” and Anna lives in the house that Rachel once lived in herself.

“I feel like I’m part of this mystery, I’m connected. I am no longer just a girl on the train, going back and forth without point or purpose.”

As the mystery unfolds, sections of the book are told from the perspectives of each of the three women. There are flashback scenes and flash forward scenes. Telling much about the mystery, just as in Gone Girl, would spoil the story for other readers. But here’s a snippet that occurs early enough in the story and I love the literary reference:

I think about Ted Hughes, moving Assia Wevill into the home he’d shared with Plath, of her wearing Sylvia’s clothes, brushing her hair with the same brush. I want to ring Anna up and remind her that Assia ended up with her head in the oven, just like Sylvia did.

That’s quite the imagery that Hawkins creates and an interesting comparison to draw among four women. There are those who hated Gone Girl because of its ending or the unsympathetic nature of its characters. Those who loved that book will enjoy The Girl on the Train but the characters are much easier to sympathize with … for the most part.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book of short stories

A book by an author you've never read before

Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
Publication date: 1973

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

These words spoken by Mandy Patinkin in the film The Princess Bride have been emblazoned on T-shirts, memes and Facebook feeds for decades.

This was a rare occurrence for me: reading the book after I'd seen the movie. Truth be told, when I first saw The Princess Bride on film, I didn't even know it was a book until I had a job in a bookstore in the 1990s and found myself shelving it in the Fantasy section. As a sucker for a Kindle Daily Deal (sign up here, you won't regret it), I snatched this one up Oscar weekend for $2.99. My next challenge was slotting it in my Reading Challenge because I was determined to read it.

At more than 400 pages (I was surprised too), this book was longer than my average read. I'm very glad to have read it. I learned that William Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the film and wrote Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, which is my favorite film.

It was lovely to find so many of my favorite scenes from the film were lifted word for word from the book.

"He'll never catch up!" the Sicilian cried. "Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word!" the Spaniard snapped. "I don't think it means what you think it does."

And of course ...

"You seem a decent fellow," Inigo said. "I hate to kill you." "You seem a decent fellow," answered the man in black. "I hate to die."

I confess that even though I read the book, I heard the actors' voices in my head as if I were listening to the audio book. My one criticism of the book is a writing device employed by Goldman in which he alleges to be abridging the novel written "originally" by S. Morgenstern, if fact the book is subtitled "S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure." These anecdotes can be humorous but more often than not they got tiring and made the book longer than necessary.

What can I tell you about The Princess Bride? If you enjoyed the film, I think you'll enjoy the book. In fact, it's inconceivable that you wouldn't.

Three stars (but really good stars)

Next challenge: A famous author's first book

A book based entirely on its cover

Title: Mary Coin
Author: Marisa Silver
Publication date: 2013

The photograph is famous. Iconic even. Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother symbolizes a mother's desperation in a California migrant workers' camp in 1936. Marisa Silver's 2013 novel Mary Coin tells a fictional story about the subject of that photograph.

Weaving together the stories of the migrant mother Mary Coin with the photographer Vera Dare and a social historian Walker Dodge. While some may struggle to abandon thoughts of the photo's true story, I found Silver's characters compelling and was pulled into their world willingly.

We first meet Mary Coin as an adolescent and come to know the Oklahoma girl who already knows who she is. Vera Dare is already a professional portrait photographer in San Francisco when her part of the story is introduced. The book itself however begins with its male lead character Walker Dodge. Despite studying the history of others, Walker struggles to come to terms with his own family history as he cares for his dying father, the patriarch of what was once one of California's farm dynasties (if there was such a thing.)

Mary read local news about wheat prices and articles about the new tractors that could cut and thresh in a third of the time it took a man and a mule to do the job. Her mother claimed these machines were no better than your own two hands, but Mary knew that her mother decided something old was better than something new only to bury want. 

Mary Coin was the selection for my fabulous book club in March. I finished reading it a week ago but delayed my blog until our club met. My club rarely lets me down and this selection will likely be one of my favorite picks for 2015.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book by an author you've never read before

A book with one-word title

Title: Night

Author: Elie Wiesel

Publication date: 1958 

For many years, I'd convinced myself I had read Night. A copy of it was on my family bookshelf for decades. I now know I hadn't read it. One does not forget the story.

Elie Wiesel's Night is his memoir of survival in the face of unbelievable torture and the absence of humanity in the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz, Buna and Buchenwald.

I was particularly touched by the author's contemplation of faith. How could someone forced to witness death at the hands of such terror not question the existence of God? Even one so close to God as the young Wiesel, who was 15 when his imprisonment began.

His memory of others' experiences is astounding. He bears witness to his neighbors', fellow prisoners' and family members' fears and expectations with shocking clarity. Here he recounts another assessment of Hitler:

"'I have more faith in Hitler than anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.'"

It is a heartbreaking story. I am glad it is required reading in so many classrooms today. There are far too many who continue to deny the Holocaust. As Wiesel says, "To forget the dead would not only be dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."

Four stars (only because I wanted to know more about his sisters' survival but perhaps this was not their story but their brother's and father's)

Next challenge: A book based entirely on its cover

A book written by someone under 30

A book written by someone under 30

Title: Tales from the Jazz Age
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Publication date: 1922

F. Scott Fitzgerald was only 26 when Tales from the Jazz Age was published. The Great Gatsby remains my favorite novel so selecting one of his books for this challenge seemed apropos.

This collection of 11 Fitzgerald short stories is best known for its inclusion of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which inspired the Brad Pitt (see how I referenced Brad Pitt in a blog post about a book?!) film of the same name.

What I love about Fitzgerald is his craft. So often a sentence or passage is so perfectly composed I find myself re-reading it just to wish I could somehow write that well.

She had never felt her own softness so much nor so enjoyed the whiteness of her own arms. "I smell sweet," she said to herself simply, and then came another thought -- "I'm made for love."

For the most part, I found reading this collection a bit of a chore. There were highlights among the stories. I particularly enjoyed May Day and O Russet Witch!

Three stars

Next challenge: A book with a one word title.

A book you can read in a day

A book you can read in a day

Title: The Alchemist
Author: Paulo Coelho
Publication date: 1993

This is yet another book that I started without knowing what to expect. I hadn't even read the description when I set about to read it.

The Alchemist is a modern-day parable. The story begins in Spain and the protagonist crosses much of northern Africa on his attempt to find a great treasure. Along his journey, he comes in contact with a series of people who either put barriers in his way or help him in his quest.

Few characters within The Alchemist have names. The lead character is referred to simply as "the boy" despite the fact that he is of marriageable age throughout the entire story. Other characters are the Englishman, the candy seller and the alchemist. For some reason, this really bugged me.

The language of book is often beautiful particularly when you consider it was translated from another language (Portuguese? Spanish?) originally.

Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate only on the present, you'll be a happy man. 

I'm not certain what all the buzz has been about this book. In fact, I fell asleep while reading it twice.

Two stars

Next challenge: TBD

A book set in high school

A book set in high school

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: The inimitable John Green
Publication date: 2005

First I need to establish that John Green is a genius. The Fault in our Stars is perfection. An Abundance of Katherines, in some ways, is better than TFIOS (that's right, I said it.) Looking for Alaska is the third of Green's books that I've read in the last 12 months. If it had been written by any other author I would probably have rated it higher but Green is competing against Green in my esteem and that's a tough match up.

I plan to read all of Green's work but when I found Looking for Alaska on a banned books list, I got a little righteous and had to buy it and read it immediately.

Here's some advice to the parents out there: If you want to know what is going on in the minds of your teenage children, read John Green. This man captures adolescence with complete authenticity. The good, the bad and the sad.

"But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out there," he said nodding toward the lake and beyond.

At a small co-ed boarding school in Alabama, Miles Halter is hoping to turn his invisible existence at his home high school into a bright future. Almost immediately upon arriving for his junior year, Miles discovers something he lacked previously: a friend. And so begins the story of a cast of misfits, who somehow fit together.

Miles' roommate, The Colonel, introduces him to Alaska (and this is where I find out the book isn't about the Last Frontier) who, in turn, introduces him to Takumi. They form an immediate unit but the nucleus of the group is Alaska as the three boys are drawn to her beauty, her brain and her wit (well, and her cigarette stash to be fair).

The group engages in a series of pranks but remain committed to their studies and pull in top grades. And then tragedy. The students turn away from one another and then back to one another as they search for answers to questions 16-year-olds shouldn't have to ask.

Green dives head first into the trials of adolescence: smoking, drinking, sexing and studying. Throughout it all, he tells a story about friendship and forgiveness.

Three stars

Next challenge: A book you can read in a day

A book with a number in the title

A book with a number in the title

Title: One Plus One
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publication date: 2014

Last year, I read Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret and quickly followed it up with her Big Little Lies. I loved both. Jojo Moyes' writing reminds me a bit of Moriarty's in that I am completely consumed by the story and adore the characters (well, except those that I deplore).

It's no wonder then that I found myself reading a second Moyes' book, in fact her latest release, just a few weeks after finishing Me Before You. Again, I was drawn into this book and its charming characters much as I was drawn into the other books noted in this post.

One Plus One is a story about family. And, in this case, demonstrates that it doesn't take a blood relationship to make a family.

When we meet Jess Thomas she is a single mother to a teenage son, Nicky, and a 10-year-old daughter Tanzie. Jess is not a complainer but it is quickly evident that she's doing everything she can to just hold it together. While her husband, who moved to his mother's home a few hours away during a bout of depression two years earlier, is "getting back on his feet", she is working two job as a house cleaner and as a waitress in the local pub.

Imagine Jess' surprise when she answers a phone call to find one of her daughter's teachers explaining that Tanzie is a math prodigy. He wants Tanzie to attend a nearby private school but that costs money Jess doesn't have.

Through an unusual set of circumstances, the Thomases find themselves on a journey to Scotland so Tanzie can turn her skill in "maths" (note the Britishism) into prize money for her new school. Their chauffer for the trip is one of Jess' cleaning clients, a wealthy businessman who is trying to escape from his own life.

The story that unfolds is best left to Moyes to tell but is certainly worth reading.

I'll certainly read more of Jojo Moyes' writing. I just hope that the next book of hers I read doesn't have the formulaic rich man rescued by the down-on-her-luck local girl. My only criticism of this book is that it seems to follow the same set up as Me Before You.

Four stars (I should probably give it three stars but I really enjoyed it this much so the hell with it.)

Next challenge: A book based entirely on its cover -- time for my book club's next pick.

A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet

A book from an author you love that you haven’t read yet

Title: True to Form
Author: Elizabeth Berg
Publication Date: 2002

In the 1990s, I had a part-time job at a bookstore. One of the perks was being able to borrow any hardcover book you wanted. It was my own lending library. It is through this experience that I discovered Elizabeth Berg and also the reason why I don't own my favorite of her books (Talk Before Sleep), which I borrowed from the store.

From that experience and that first book, I began a decades-long appreciation and love for Berg's characters and her books. This challenge allowed me to revisit Berg and reacquaint myself with her beloved character Katie Nash. True to Form has been on my TBR shelf for at least 10 years. Having read it, I'm not sure why I delayed so long.

True to Form is Berg's third book about Katie Nash though I found it to stand on its own quite well. I have vague memories the other stories (Durable Goods, Joy School) yet I appreciated and loved this story without needing to re-read those.

When the story picks up, Katie is living in Missouri with her Army dad and stepmother. We follow Katie across the summer of her sophomore year of high school as she works two jobs secured for her by her father and spends time with her best friend and corresponds with a friend she left behind in Texas, her father's previous assignment.

Katie has a secret. She wants to be a writer. And not just any kind of writer: a poet. Berg captures Katie's yearning to be a writer as well as her talent beautifully. Just as I love John Green's ability to write dialogue among teens, Berg nails the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl.

This is among one of my favorite passages, picked in honor of my Must Love Dogs book club:

I walk far out in the fields, then let the dogs loose. They get busy right away, sniffing everything, running around. I wonder what they smell. You can tell the scents are all different. Sometimes they just take a little whiff and keep on running; other times they stop dead in their tracks and sniff forever. And sometimes they sniff very delicately, their lips drawn back a bit, as though they're saying, Ewww, this smells awful, let me smell it some more.

Though it took me 10 years to return to Elizabeth Berg, I know it won't be 10 years before I read another of her books. And just think, I have a decade of her writing to choose from.

Five stars (Really)

Next challenge: I don't know what challenge it'll be but I know I'm reading One by One by Jojo Moyes. Come back to find out which of the remaining 41 challenges it accomplishes.

A book based on or turned into a TV show

A book based on or turned into a TV show

Title: The Leftovers
Author: Tom Perrotta
Publication date: 2011
Challenge: A book based on or turned into a TV show

I came to this book a bit differently than I typically do. First, my friend Rachel implored upon me to watch the HBO series based on the book. Unlike me, Rachel doesn't watch much television so if she was interested, I thought I'd check it out. A few episodes in and I was hooked. Then I had one of my frequent "what are you reading" text exchanges with my friend Skye. Turns out she had read The Leftovers previously and loved it (but wouldn't watch the series). Thanks to a Kindle Daily Deal in December, it found its way to my e-reader.

An interesting side note about the PopSugar list is that I haven't spent any money or made one visit to the library since I've begun this undertaking. I've found my robust Kindle TBR list and my actual TBR bookshelf will help me meet most of the challenges. And technically, I bought A Long Fatal Love Chase in 2014. :-)

It's hard for me to review or talk about The Leftovers without comparing the book to the TV series. The premise of both is the same and the characters have the same names and share some similarities but the series takes many liberties as Hollywood is wont to do.

It's three years after a Rapture-like or the actual Rapture event occurs. The book takes its title from those who are, pardon the usage, left behind.

Tom Garvey is the town mayor. His family is the center of the story with only one non-Garvey character (Nora Durst) being prominently featured in chapters of her own. Nora lost her entire family (husband, son and daughter) in the Sudden Departure.

The Garveys include daughter Jill, a high school student; son Tom, who has left home and joined a cult; and mom/wife Laurie, who has joined a cult of her own the Guilty Remnant or G.R.

The story follows the characters as they go about trying to live a life in a world that is forever changed. Jill is struggling to find herself while desperately missing her mother.

Four stars

Next challenge: TBD

My attempt to read 52 books in 2015

I blame Pinterest. Though it's just as easy to blame my book club. I have a pretty awesome book club. But let's get back to Pinterest ...

I have a Pinterest board (Book worm) where I pin quotes, ecards and book lists (I love book lists) for later reference or my personal amusement. A few months ago, Pinterest started suggesting posts that I might like. Up pops the PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge. This list is different from the other lists I scour through. It's not the top 10 books of [insert year/genre/author/etc.]. This one is different.

I'm intrigued. I begin to ponder the challenge of reading 50 books in a single year. (I read over 30 in 2014 but 50 could be a stretch as I do have a family and a job.)

The PopSugar list doesn't reference specific books or even a genre. It poses challenges such as "a book with more than 500 pages," "a classic romance," "a book that became a movie" and so on.

I printed copies of the list (see PDF). Posted it on my bulletin board at work. Left copies on my friends'/coworkers'/fellow book clubbers' (they share all three affiliations) desks. And then I waited for 2014 to end because I couldn't see the value in starting a book that wouldn't earn me "credit" for the challenge.

I've been a fan of Goodreads for several years. The previous two years my reading was spurred by the Goodreads' challenge. I thought about tracking my progress via that site but then decided a blog might be more fun.

If you are a fan of reading, I welcome you to join me on my yearlong journey as I read my way through a list of 52 (that's right, not 50!) challenges.

A book that made you cry

A book that made you cry

Title: Me Before You
Author: Jojo Moyes
Publication date: 2012

In the "which came first" realm, this book came before the challenge. As I plod through my Kindle purchases, I decided that Me Before You would be my next book. I'd just read From Baghdad to America and I really deserved a reward. Not certain which challenge it would fulfill but with "a book written by a female author" in my back pocket, I started.

I was quickly drawn into the story. Louisa Clark is a young woman who loses her job in a cafe and must find work quickly since she is the breadwinner in her parents' household. She is hired to care for Will Traynor, a 30-something man who is a quadriplegic. The contract provided by Will's mother is for six months. Desperate for the income with few options available in the small English town where she lives, Lou sets off on this new role.

Jojo Moyes pulled me right into Louisa's life. I was rooting for her; angry at her family for treating her so poorly; angry at her boyfriend for taking her for granted; and perplexed by Will Traynor's demeanor toward her.

"I got to study Will Traynor up close, in those first couple of weeks. I saw that he seemed determined not to look anything like the man he had been; he had let his light-brown hair grow into a shapeless mess, his stubble crawl across his jaw. His gray eyes were lined with exhaustion, or the effort of constant discomfort ... They bore they hollow look of someone who was always a few steps removed from the world around him."

Even though Louisa is in her late 20s, I think of Me Before You as a a coming-of-age story. Perhaps it's better to consider it a coming into one's own as she finds her world and interest expanded by someone who, now confined to a wheelchair, lived a life of adventure and culture.  

It's a great skill when a writer can make you hate a character for 150 pages and then fall in love with him for the remaining 150 pages of the book. Moyes does this. I've already classified it as a book that made me cry but I was surprised by the turns in the story and truly appreciated them.

Four stars (though I'm seriously considering increasing it to five)

Next challenge: A book based on or turned into a TV show

A book with bad reviews

A book with bad reviews

Title: From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava 
Author: Jay Kopelman
Publication date: 2010

My book club read Jay Kopelman's first book, From Baghdad with Love, several years ago and enjoyed it. We were all dog lovers (hence our name Must Love Dogs) and enjoyed rooting for Kopelman's effort to bring a dog he'd rescued as a Marine stationed in Iraq home to the U.S. against military rules. When his second book came up as a Kindle Daily Deal, not only did I buy it, I encouraged the members of my club to do so as well. For that I can only say, "I'm sorry."

I bought this book last year and it's been on my Kindle for three or four months. I approached it believing I'd accomplish the challenge of "a book with nonhuman characters." I quickly realized that the dog I'd fallen in love with (who was pictured on the cover and included in the subtitle) was rarely mentioned in this book.

The book begins with Kopelman taking his dog for a walk around his home in Palo Alto, Calif. Lava, like many survivors of war, has PTSD (who wouldn't?). Kopelman takes the dog for a walk OFF LEASH. Our first reunion with Lava is him being hit by a car and my opinion of Kopelman takes a dive and doesn't recover.

It's important that I am cautious in my critique and in my opinion of Kopelman because he is an angry man. He doesn't like critics and he is pretty clear about that in his book. Not only is the story lacking but Kopelman could've used a better editor too. Lava seems to be an afterthought. Most chapters are a rant about civilians taking soldiers and their service for granted and then close with a quip about Lava. Here's the one quote I highlighted in my reading:

“Of course I apologized, but I couldn’t shake the sense that I was truly an asshole.” 

My note said, "Because you ARE an asshole!"

The best thing I can say for this book is that Lava is still alive. The second nice thing I can say is that it only took me two days to read it. In the end, it went from "a book with nonhuman characters" to "a book with bad reviews." Guess I'm back to Animal Farm for my nonhuman character challenge.

Next challenge: TBD

A book written by an author with your same initials

A book written by an author with your same initials

Title: Around the World in 80 Days
Author: Jules Verne
Publication date: 1872

Some of the reading challenges I approach knowing what book I'll read but others require some pondering maybe even some research. Such was the case with this challenge. One of my favorite discoveries (yay research!) was this site which aggregates authors. Debbie, I don't know who you are but I know you're a genius. Thanks to Debbie, I found my JV in Jules Verne.

This book is a perfect example of how one title can fit multiple challenges. In addition to the challenge I selected, this book would also fit a book "originally written in another language," "more than 100 years old" or "with a number in the title." How fun!

To say I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Around the World in 80 Days would be an understatement. I found myself eager to read it. I also found it written in a style that made me wonder if it was originally written for serialization as the chapters (or every two chapters) seem to have their own story arc as they collectively moved the lead character from continent to continent.

Verne's language is descriptive (much credit to what had to be a phenomenal translator) and, despite being written in the 1800s, stands up well in 2015.

[Passepartout], without a word, made a rush for him, grasped him by the throat and, much to the amusement of a group of Americans, who immediately began to bet on him, administered to the detective a perfect volley of blows, which proved the great superiority of French over English pugilistic skill.

Now how's that for a sentence?

Four stars

Next challenge: A book with nonhuman characters

A book a friend recommended

A book a friend recommended

Title: Still Alice 
Author: Lisa Genova
Publication date: 2007

Alice Howland is kind of a big deal. She's a professor of psychology at Harvard and travels the world as an invited speaker at conferences, is a published author and researcher. When Alice begins to forget things, she finds it unusual but not alarming. When she goes out for a run and can't remember how to get home, things change.

Lisa Genova, herself an accomplished professor of psychology, takes us through Alice's discovery of her early-onset Alzheimer's and how this alters her family dynamic.

The subject matter was a jarring one. My own great memory is a personal source of pride. The possibility of that trait deteriorating is frightening. It's certainly what makes Still Alice such a compelling read: if it can happen to someone as accomplished, albeit fictional, as Alice, could it happen to me? What would I do?

Still Alice is the February selection for my book club selected and recommended by my friend Jorri. We're looking forward to that discussion and hoping to see the film adaptation soon as well.

Four stars

Next challenge: A book by an author with your same initials

A book that became a movie

A book that became a movie

Title: Must Love Dogs
Author: Claire Cook
Publication date: 2002

In January 2012, four friends/coworkers/fellow writers and I started a book club. (You can read that story at my friend Jill's site.) We called ourselves Must Love Dogs because, well we do, and our initial bonding occurred over stories of our dogs. It was convenient that it is also the name of a book, though one none of us had read.

This January, having availed myself of a Kindle Daily Deal to purchase the book in 2014, I set about to read Must Love Dogs. My short review to my book club girls was, "It was a'ight."

Must Love Dogs is the story of Sarah Hurlihy a relatively newly divorced 40-something whose big Irish-American family is encouraging her to "get out there again." The Hurlihy clan is central to the story and I found their interactions with one another to be real and engaging.

I was a bit disenchanted when I set about reading the book and discovered it had been turned into a series. Given I am still mourning Augustus Waters and would like to chat with the characters from The Invention of Wings, the fact that I'm not eager to read the other books in the series speaks volumes about the book or so I think.

Enough said.

Two stars

Next challenge: A book a friend recommended