Update:

For those of you who ran out and read "Under The Banner of Heaven" after I raved about in on the blog (who am I kidding?) you will be happy to celebrate the capture of Warren Jeffs with the rest of who are flabbergasted by the actions of this man. Sadly, my pessimistic self doubts this will make a big difference in the community, but who knows, I would love to be wrong. At least there is one less person out there who is promoting this behavior.

Hemingway's Bell Tolls for Me.

And its about time! My reading comes in these very predictable patters. I pick up one amazing book, love it. And then become so lucky as to find myself on what we might call a "roll." I become a rage reader, reading nearly ever second that I can spare. Cloud Atlas, Devil in the White City, Assassination Vacation, Life of Pi...of course, it can't go on forever. A mediocre book must come along (sometimes even a flat out awful book comes). I always know it's coming, but never when. This last time around I got arrogant with my succession of great books and decided to experiment, to pick up a book I read about in a news letter at the local independent book store. You all already heard me rant about The Memory Keeper's Daughter thus there is no need to go in repetitive detail. The point I am trying to make here is that when I hit that red light it throws me completely out of whack. It takes me the longest time to get into another book. And what a shame. It's like starting from scratch, I pick up five or six books against my own will, read the first twenty pages and find myself completely unamused, just waiting to finally getting hooked. And this my friends, can take weeks. So, if you have been wondering where I ran off to, and how I could forget all about my dear blog, know that my heart has been breaking too.

The good news is, I am finally back in the game. For Whom The Bell Tolls. And I hardly thought this would be the book. In all honesty, I have read The Sun Also Rises on two different occasions and never really got into it. Obviously not Hemingway's fault, he's a writer unto his own and I greatly respect his talents. The Old Man in the Sea was a wonderful read but I was a young woman on a stunning sailboat in the Caribbean, how could I not love it? But alas, I am chipper to report, my fifty-fifty experience with Hemingway has swung into the positive. So no worries, I have returned. And I missed you too.

One more thing: if any of you have read anything lately that I must read, I'm taking suggestions. I don't want to fall back into my slump and I'm counting on you to keep me out of it. To encourage you to help me out, I hear by promise, if I read the book you suggest to me, whenever I mention (insert your recommendation here) in a conversation or on a blog, I will give you full credit of so kindly advising me on that brilliant book, thereby forever accrediting you with cunning and wit unparalleled.

Thanks!

A word from our newest contributing writer, NJDT:

Since the husband and I are obviously aren't reading enough non-fiction these days, a friend is giving us some help:

"The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece" by Victor Davis Hanson.

It's a fascinating book that addresses how Greeks fought, and how that fighting has created a Western Way of War. The book argues that the Western Way of War has left us with a "burdensome legacy: a presumption that battle under any guise other than a no-nonsense, head-to-head confrontation between sober enemies is or should be unpalatable." Thus War is the battle on the field by hostile powers subscribing to the rules of war. Unfortunately we, the West, have become so good at this type of war that no power is willing to fight us in the Western Way. Instead our success has created an enemy who chooses irregular war--the guerrilla, the terrorist. And we have perhaps ended war as we like it.

If you decide to read this book. Reader beware. You will spend 200 pages reading about the terrifying experience of hoplite battles.

Roth, Philip: Plot Against America, The

I haven't yet finished reading The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth, but I will finish it probably this weekend. Before I started reading it, I heard some negative things about the book, but the alternate world predicated by the book was too intriguing to pass up.
Here are a few things that I think are great about this book:
It doesn't let any political position slip freely through. The anti-war folks (with whom I've always counted myself) are given an argument for war that is quite impossible to oppose, while the pro-war folks are given the stance of the isolationists and anti-semites all in the name of a unified America.
The blend of (anti)-history with history, fiction and memoir allows a very peculiar relationship to the author. Like Roth saying, this could have been my family.
Finally, in a book about anti-semitic America under President Charles Lindbergh, it both scares one to think about the correlations to today's political situation (gasp), but on further contemplation, that does not actually seem tobe a connection at all, other than,our government is scary, like this fictional one. They actually seem to be quite opposite situations.
Also, the book has plenty of problems.

Cosbyology. Sign me up.

There's nothing new about this book, or particularly interesting. I just happened to come across it on Amazon and thought it was probably the worst book cover I've ever seen and the worst title that I've ever heard. Cosbyology? What is that? A mix between Astrology and good ol' wholesome family values via the Huxtables?
Worse covers? Titles?

p.s. How great was the Cosby show?

On Beauty

So I just finished On Beauty, and while it took quite awhile for me to get into it, by the end I was very invested. And I agree with I think it was Big Al who said that the ending was perfect. It was. Very right in the moment, without resolution, but instead clarity, the letting go of the need for resolution. Who else has read this? Despite my initial doubts, I was also convinced that it really was a good book by how much I was aggravated and piqued by Howard Belsey. I have rarely felt such an inflamed emotional response to the personal injustice of a character's astonishing egocentrism as I did with that man (my sense of injustice was, however, occasionally soothed by the gratifying fights between him and his fantastic wife Kiki). Although it was interesting how a man who harbors such anxiety and distrust over the representation of humans in art, etc, is yet so incapable of comprehending the real human weight of anyone outside of himself.

Gunter Grass, SS.

You've all probably heard by now that Nobel Prize winner Gunter Grass has revealed what must be the last secret he'll ever tell the public. He was a Nazi. According to today's NYTimes, Grass was recruited at 17 into the "notorious Nazi Corps." (The Nazi's were notorious?)
Grass has long been a bright spot for the post-WWII Germans, as a writer of remorse and conscience, as evidenced in his lovely Nobel Lecture from 1999.

"I wanted to make it clear to myself and my readers, not without a bit of a chip on my shoulder, that what was lost did not need to sink into oblivion, that it could be resuscitated by the art of literature in all its grandeur and pettiness: the churches and cemeteries, the sounds of the shipyards and smells of the faintly lapping Baltic, a language on its way out yet still stable-warm and grumble-rich, sins in need of confession, and crimes tolerated if never exonerated."

The Times mentioned also that the response in Germany is not one of anger about the Nazi role he played, but of the secrecy that surrounded it for so many years. Does this matter, that at 17 a great writer was recruited to be a Nazi? I'm not sure.

Longlist Announced:

The Man Booker Prize has announced the 2006 longlist for fiction. David Mitchell, whom we all know I love, was nominated for Black Swan Green. Most of the rest of the books I haven't heard of, let alone read. But maybe you have...

Harold Bloom.

During vacation there was much conversation surrounding literary theory/criticism and literature, their function, their opacity, what the words even mean, and why we read them in the first place. In the midst of this, Harold Bloom, the popular critic and professor, came up time and again. "I enjoy reading Bloom," I said, "but the man seems disagreeable, derisive and divisive." (this alliteration was purely coincidental).
In the comments to an earlier post, someone pasted Bloom writing on Stephen King, and he has a similar article on Harry Potter. His opinion: these are bad authors writing bad fiction and the world should stop reading them, to put it mildly.
Here's what I don't really understand. If Bloom wants to continue doing culture criticism (which he does) and ivory tower criticism (which he also does), what should we make of him? Of course DeLillo and McCarthy are better writers than Stephen King. Does anyone really argue differently? Does that mean Bloom should belittle the rest of American culture because they don't read it? Or is he upset because the academic culture studies King and Rowling?
Popularizing Shakespeare Studies is great, and I love Invention of the Human, hopefully it brings people to read Shakespeare. But telling people that reading Harry Potter is actually worse than not reading at all just seems like a waste of energy.
I know some of you out there have opinions on Bloom, and on criticism and popular literature, so lets hear it.

My Honeymoon Read...

I finished “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” late last night after CZF went to bed. I was pretty excited about this book after reading the plot line: Opening on a winter night in 1964, Dr. David Henry is forced by a blizzard to deliver his own twins. His son is perfectly healthy, but his daughter is born with Down's syndrome. Since it’s 1964 he makes a split second decision and asks his nurse to take the baby girl away to an institution; all with out the wife knowing. Of course, the nurse cannot leave the infant and instead disappears into another city to raise the child herself. Sadly, the book did not turn out to be all I had hoped for. The writing was so-so, apparently the only description Edwards could think of to describe the eyes of someone with Down’s syndrome is “almond shaped.” Then there was cliche descriptions, about the wind she writes, “it flew like a bird.” Yeah. Anyway. Beyond that I didn’t feel much of a connection to the characters and regularly found myself distracted by her mediocre skills at writing dialogue. All that said, I feel like I should give her some credit, I mean I did read the whole thing over the past three days. The story struck the curious chord in me and I found myself very anxious to find out how everything would come together. For a first novel I would say she did pretty well but I hope that by her next novel gets some amazing reviews by people that I respect otherwise I don’t think I will be picking it up. Has anyone else read it?

A Book Everyone Should Read.

I know CLZF said we would be gone for a while, and this post isn't to contradict him because indeed we will be, but I just wanted to give you all the chance to rave about this book if you have read it. And if you haven't already read it, then you should read it and come back and rave about it. Honestly, I think Cloud Atlas might be the best contemporary fiction I have ever read. Mitchell is an astounding writer. Multiple story lines, each as intriguing as the last, great depth of character every time. It's nearly impossible not to become completely attached. So much is packed in between the covers that you think he won't be able to pull it all off but he does and the end leaves your head spinning. So, rave or get to reading because this book is amazing.

The ZFs are off for a while

The blog will be up to Scarlet Zapata for a while. The husband and wife duo who maintain this blog are off for a time. First the move, then to MN to relax and finally to WI for the wedding of a loved one.
We shall return. Until then, peace out.