Category: Literature

Books That Change Lives

Posted on by Dana

Last week Lifehacker asked its readers to vote for the books that changed their lives. I think the resulting list gives a lot of insight into the kind of readers Lifehacker has, but it also made me wonder what I would say if someone asked me to list books that had changed my life. Whenever I have to fill out profiles that ask for my favorite books, I always say “too many to list,” which is quite true, but I wonder if I can narrow down the books that changed my life? In no particular order, this is my list:

To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This story of racism and prejudice in the Deep South profoundly affected me when I first read it in the 11th grade. If I recall, it was the only assigned reading in high school that I actually read ahead of the reading schedule. I really enjoyed that book. Since then, whenever I have shared it with students, I have fallen in love all over again — with the language, the characters, the story it tells. Harper Lee calls her novel “a love story” (the paperback version linked here includes this reference Lee makes on its back cover). It took me a long time to figure out what she meant, but I believe I understand.

Gone With the WindGone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

While today I find the characterization of the African-American characters to be at best romantic and at worst racist, I have to admit this book was my first “adult” novel and really taught me how amazing and wonderful the world of books could truly be. I took the book with me everywhere and read it whenever I had a free moment. It took me two or three weeks to finish the first time I read it. I think I will most likely always have a soft spot for this novel.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 10th Anniversary EditionHarry Potter Series, by J. K. Rowling

No other books have given me so much delight and have so frequently been on my re-reading cycle. Believe it or not, I have endured a lot of criticism for liking these books — some of it from people I am close to. I have had to defend my interest in these books to adults who think I should know better than to love children’s books. I just can’t understand why those people feel it necessary to be so narrow-minded and joyless. Why should they care? I fell in love with these books some time during my reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. If I had to select an exact moment, it might be when Hagrid shows up at the hut in the sea. In fact, my favorite scene in any of the books remains Harry’s first trip to Diagon Alley to get his school supplies.

The Great GatsbyThe Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Containing some of the most beautiful prose in American literature, The Great Gatsby remains one of my favorite books to teach. I have many of my favorite passages highlighted. I actually enjoy the language more than the plot of the story. I pulled out my favorite passages and wrote about them many years ago.

The Mists of AvalonThe Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I know I really like a book when I finish and wish with all my heart that I had written it. Why I feel it necessary to make it even more mine than it is after having read it, I’m not sure, but I have felt it several times. However, I think the fist time I felt it was after reading this novel. I still maintain, even after ten years have passed since I read it, that it is the best rendition of the King Arthur story I’ve read. I’ve never looked at the character Morgan le Faye the same way since then (or Guinevere, for that matter). To me, this novel was pitch-perfect, or it was when I read it. I was enthralled by it.

I’m sure I could expand upon this list with a bit more thought. It would never include any Ayn Rand, however.

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Goodreads Bookshelves

Posted on by Dana

Goodreads has a lot of options for organizing books. So many in fact that I decided when I joined up that I would have to wait until summer, when I would have more time, to create tags for my books. Goodreads calls their tags “shelves,” which is appropriate for a social network/organization system focused on books. After shelving all my books, I checked out the book tag cloud feature. Here is a screenshot of my book cloud as it looks today:

I feel as though I should explain some of my tags. I labeled some books “fantasy/sci-fi” when other people might not have, but my reasoning is that if there is any element of the supernatural, it’s fantasy or sci-fi. Thus, I tagged Macbeth as fantasy because of the witches (I also labeled it “feminist” because Lady Macbeth is an unusually strong female character for both the time in which the play is set as well as written). I probably should have tagged it gothic also, but for some reason, my definition for gothic was more precise. I tagged some books “feminist” when others might not consider them feminist. For my purposes, a feminist book is any book that has a strong female character for her time — someone who stands up for herself. Feminist books are also books that criticize patriarchal attitudes and structures (which, I think, is probably the more standard definition). Therefore, I labeled The Scarlet Letter as feminist even though I believe it might give Nathaniel Hawthorne a heart attack (if he were alive to have one, that is) to hear me say that about his book. However, books with modern women who stand up for themselves and hold their own I didn’t label feminist because I think that’s what modern women do and it’s acceptable for modern women to do. If, however, that modern woman lives in a society that suppresses women, that’s a different story. I used the tag “taught” for any books I have taught in the past or will teach this year. I cannot believe I have taught that many books.

I have to watch it. I can login to Goodreads and wind up spending hours fiddling with my books and reading reviews.

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Emily Brontë

Posted on by Dana

As I read Wuthering Heights, I find myself somewhat awed by Emily Brontë’s characterization and storytelling, especially given her own sister Charlotte’s assertion (in the 1850 introduction to Wuthering Heights) that Emily didn’t have the opportunity to travel widely and learn a great deal about different types of people.  Also, given her age (29) when the novel was completed, her accomplishment is all the more astonishing.

I think many people might read Charlotte’s introduction and find her criticisms somewhat unfair, but they struck me for their even-handedness.  Many of us might be tempted to see only good in a sister’s only novel and greatest accomplishment, especially after that sister’s death, but Charlotte seems to me to be quite a keen critic.  I’m not sure I agree with her criticisms yet (I think I’ll finish the book first), but I found them interesting nonetheless.

I found an excellent resource for readers of Wuthering Heights.  I especially like the photographs and artwork, which help me visualize the setting (not that Brontë is any slouch at description).

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Times Book Reviews

Posted on by Dana

New York Times book reviews filled my RSS reader this morning.  So I can close some tabs in my browser, I will tell you about the books that caught my eye.

How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz is an autobiographical account of the children’s author’s arrival in Turkistan as a refugee from Warsaw in 1939.  His father goes to the market, but comes back home with a map instead of food for the family.  As a child who loved globes and maps (still do), I can relate to the protagonist’s discovery of the world through maps.  [Read the review.]

As the reviewer notes, biographies of Robert Frost are certainly common enough, but Brian Hall’s Fall of Frost is a novelized biography of the poet.  How does it work?  In the eyes of the reviewer, not so well.

Richard Bausch’s account of a murder committed by a soldier in WWII, Peace examines “how to preserve justice and personal integrity amid war’s insanity.”  The novel begins with a soldier’s murder of a German woman.  According to the reviewer:

Great writing about war — by Primo Levi, Erich Maria Remarque, Wilfred Owen — asks the same questions. What would you do? How can you bear witness? How can you preserve dignity and humanity in an inhuman struggle? These are the most (perhaps the only) important questions in conflict, and they always have been, whether the battle is fought in Amiens, Anzio or Abu Ghraib.

I learned that the OED has no plans to publish another print edition of the dictionary.  Doesn’t surprise me.  None of my students even think of turning to a dictionary on the bookshelf in order to complete their vocabulary assignments for my class.  When I point them toward one of these archaic devices after they have complained about finding the etymology for one of their vocabulary words, the response is usually something like, “Oh yeah, those things still exist.”  Perhaps the OED online wouldn’t be such a bad thing?  Then again, never having owned any print version of an OED dictionary, maybe I don’t have the same attachment to a print OED that the article’s author has.  Well, change is always hard, isn’t it?

Louise Erdrich has a new novel.  The Plague of Doves is the story of a public lynching of several Native Americans that haunts a small North Dakota town decades after it took place.  The novel’s multiple narrators attempt to unravel the story of who really committed the crime for which the Native Americans were lynched, but, as the reviewer notes, the real story is the complicated web of relationships among the town’s residents.  The genealogist in me can’t resist a book with that kind of description.

Is anyone else kind of annoyed by James Frey’s posts at the Amazon blog?  I mean, today it was a link to a review of his own book in Time, which bothered for some reason I can’t put my finger on.

I think I’ll be finishing The Book of Air and Shadows today, so peek in later for the review.  It won’t be pretty.

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Confessions of a Pagan Nun

Posted on by Dana

Kate Horsley’s Confessions of a Pagan Nun has been on my to-read list for at least a couple of years, and I finally decided to take it off the shelf and read it. Serendipitously, I discovered the Historical Fiction Challenge and was able to use this book as part of the challenge.

For those of you who may have read The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier (review here) or The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, the premise of this novel is not new. Confessions of a Pagan Nun is told from the viewpoint of a woman a the crossroads in history: she is born into a pagan culture and watches, reporting her observations, as Christianity gradually subsumes paganism and druidism. Gwynneve, the narrator, longed to learn to read and become a druid as a child. She tells her story from the monastery of St. Brigit, where a confluence of strange events leads to wild accusations against her.

This book is different from The Virgin Blue and The Mists of Avalon because Gwynneve sees wisdom and beauty in both Christianity and paganism; she also sees violence and ignorance in both, and boldly reports what she sees. I was reminded that while history is written by the victors, the truth usually reveals itself, and words have the power to transmit the truth when we have nothing else. It was refreshing to read a book about the conflict between paganism and Christianity that casts neither as evil in and of themselves, but lay bare that men have used both to their own ends for the worse.

Confessions of a Pagan Nun is a quick, enjoyable read. In terms of historical fiction, I saw no inaccuracies that I could tell, having studied this time period — 6th century British Isles — quite a bit. I certainly think that should one be interested in learning about life in 6th century Ireland, this book would not disappoint.

One of these days, I need to re-read The Mists of Avalon. It’s one of my all-time favorite books. My next book for the Historical Fiction Challenge is Nothing Like the Sun by Anthony Burgess (yes, author of A Clockwork Orange). This book is about Shakespeare’s love life, a topic which never fails to inspire much speculation and not a few pretty good stories.

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The Commoner

Posted on by Dana

John Burnham Schwartz acknowledges in an author’s note at the beginning of his novel The Commoner that it is inspired by people and incidents connected to the Japanese Imperial family.  Empress Michiko is the first commoner to marry into the Imperial family in its 1000-year history.  As crown princess, she and her husband, the then Crown Prince Akihito also broke tradition by deciding to raise their own children rather than send them away.

The story is told from the viewpoint of its protagonist, Haruko, the only daughter of a wealthy sake brewing company owner, who meets the crown prince of the Imperial family on the tennis court.  A somewhat awkward courtship followed, and Haruko became the crown princess.  The empress, her new mother-in-law, made it clear that she disapproved of her son’s wife and made her feel like an unwelcome outsider — even to the point of appointing ladies in waiting who spied on the princess and delivered the princess her mother-in-law’s decrees regarding Haruko’s behavior and the empress’ expectations for improvement.  When Haruko tries to assert herself upon giving birth to her son, Yasu, the empress effectively breaks Haruko’s spirit.  Years later, Haruko must make a difficult decision when she sees the weight of being a part of the Imperial family crushing her own daughter-in-law.

Truthfully, though Schwartz insists this book is a work of fiction, the story differs from that of its inspiration principally in the ending alone.  Many of the events Haruko, Schwartz’s Michiko, describes really happened to the Empress as well.  In addition, Crown Princess Masako has also suffered problems similar to those of Schwartz’s Keiko.

While the novel concerns the Japanese court, it is really the story of women.  Throughout history, women of all backgrounds have been subjugated in the way Haruko and her daughter-in-law were.  Oppressed by tradition, duty, and even, as in the case of Haruko, other women, these women were silenced.  It did not matter that they were as intelligent and capable (and often more so) as the men in their lives.  Their places in society were fixed.  I was actually reminded of Princess Diana as I read.  I think it must be difficult for women who enter into marriages with men who are part of establishments like monarchies — always saying or doing the wrong thing, never able to make their in-laws happy, all their efforts focused on giving birth to a male heir.

The novel is a love letter to those women who have been unable to tell their own stories.  I really enjoyed it.  Schwartz’s symbolism is careful and appropriate.  I liked his writing style — I felt it evoked the setting well.  I do not know much about Japan.  I did read an Amazon review that picked at some inaccuracies in the novel.  If you are quite familiar with Japan, perhaps these issues will bother you, too; however, I have to say that the majority of the reviewers agree with my own assessment that the novel is moving and beautifully written.  I might not have read the book if not for listening to this radio program about it, which says more than I can in a simple review:

Download link

You can learn more about the Emperor and Empress of Japan and their son, Crown Prince Naruhito and his wife the Crown Princess Masako.

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Neil Gaiman on Free Books

Posted on by Dana

Neil Gaiman fielded a question from an independent bookseller who was surprised by some of Gaiman’s recent comments regarding free books.  The bookseller wondered if offering books for free wouldn’t be preventing readers from buying the books from booksellers.  In honor of his blog’s seventh anniversary, Gaiman allowed readers to vote for which book in his catalog they’d like to see available online for a month, and readers selected American Gods.

Gaiman’s original words really spoke to me as an English teacher: “The problem isn’t that books are given away or that people read books they haven’t paid for. The problem is that the majority of people don’t read for pleasure.”

Gaiman’s well-reasoned response to the bookseller is worth a read.  As Gaiman astutely noted in another post, “Word of mouth is still the best tool for selling books.”  I can’t remember how many times good reviews on Amazon or from a friend or colleague or even a TV or radio program have made me buy a book I might not have purchased otherwise.

A few times I have lent books to students only to never have them returned.  While I miss my books, in a way, it’s almost better if they aren’t returned.  It means they were really enjoyed, and I would rather put that in my students’ hands than have my book.  It looks like Neil Gaiman feels the same way.

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Adding to the List

Posted on by Dana

I have some books to add to my to-read list.

Thank goodness I have finished Classroom Instruction That Works.  Maybe I can focus a bit on some pleasure reading.

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Posted on by Dana

Sylvia has a very interesting post about book clubs for homeless citizens.  I sent an e-mail to my students in National Honor Society (I am the sponsor for my school’s chapter) asking if they might be interested in doing something similar or at least holding a book drive for a shelter.  Thanks for sharing it, Sylvia.

I purchased The Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz.  I need to finish my professional development books before I can start it.  I’m not one of those people that can have a whole stack of books going at once.  Two really seems to be my limit.  But after I finish, you can look for my thoughts on Schwartz’s novel here.  One of the most frustrating things about having to take these two courses is that it has really cut into my ability to read for pleasure.  Soon, this too, shall pass.  I could actually knock out one of the courses this weekend if I focus.

In completely non-related news, I have a mild concussion.  I am all right.  What happened was a glass full of pens and spare change decided to jump off my bookshelf and attack me.  I didn’t feel myself on Friday — sort of mildly queasy and dizzy.  But worse than that, I felt a bit disoriented.  I had trouble when I was talking with students remembering a colleague’s name.  I finally decided I had better go home.  I went to the doctor, and x-rays showed no fractures.  I have a fairly painful spot on my noggin and have been trying to rest.  I’m glad it wasn’t worse.

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