Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I’m Thankful For

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Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

This week’s appropriate Top Ten Tuesday concerns authors I’m thankful for.

  1. William Shakespeare: My best moments in the classroom I owe to this writer, who is not only the greatest writer in the English language, but also the most fun to teach. I can return to his plays again and again, and I always get something new out of them. In addition, his sonnets are some of the most glorious poetry in the English language. Don’t believe me? Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ORccj9HosA
  2. Jane Austen: She is my homegirl. Really. I love her. I return to her books all the time. I love her characters, her sparkling wit, and her tangled love stories.
  3. J. K. Rowling: Some of my best reading experiences have been with the Harry Potter series. If I could read just one series over and over, and no other books, for the rest of my life, I’d choose the Harry Potter series. I find the Wizarding World to be a rich, imaginative place I never tire of visiting.
  4. Emily Brontë: She gave me my favorite book, even though it was the only book she wrote. I love returning to this book. I always notice something new. I love to hate her characters. I marvel each time I read it at the novel’s beautiful structure. Though I find the characters horrendous, I admit one place I’d love to visit is Wuthering Heights.
  5. J. R. R. Tolkien: My first major foray into fantasy set the bar really high. I am currently listening to The Hobbit in preparation for the movie. I love reading this series, and I love Middle Earth.
  6. Judy Blume: I read her books over and over again as a child. I grew up on her stories, and she has been a huge influence over my reading and writing life.
  7. Jasper Fforde: I have spent many a happy hour giggling through one of his books. He is crack for book and word nerds, and he is utterly charming.
  8. Joseph Campbell: His enduring ideas and understandings about the hero’s journey enabled me to enjoy literature and film in a new way, and I was able to construct a course around his work.
  9. Diana Gabaldon: I love her time travel romance/fantasy/historical fiction/genre-bending stories about Claire and Jamie Fraser. She is so much fun, and such a nice lady, too.
  10. Ernest Hemingway: I love, love, love F. Scott Fitzgerald, but Hemingway has a much larger canon, and I am not done with it yet. I love the way he writes, and I love to read his ideas about writing. I have rarely cried so hard over a book as I did over the end of A Farewell to Arms.

What authors are you thankful for?

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! I am so thrilled to be celebrating it this year in the state where the first Thanksgiving took place.

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R.I.P. Challenge VII

R.I.P. Recap

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I did not complete the R.I.P. Challenge this year. It’s absolutely my favorite challenge of the year, but I only managed to read one book that could be considered part of the challenge, and it wasn’t even one of the books I planned to count. By the way, I did make a soap inspired by Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season. I call it Vanilla Sugar Cane. Its ingredients are olive oil, water, coconut oil, palm oil, sodium hydroxide, sweet almond oil, cocoa butter, and castor oil, along with a vanilla sugar fragrance that is an exact duplicate of Bath & Body Works’ Warm Vanilla Sugar fragrance—one of my favorites. I can’t wait until this soap is ready.

I did not manage to finish Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m giving up on it because it just didn’t do anything for me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me because it has all the elements I usually like in books: a creepy carnival visiting a small town in the fall; lots of imagery; a story that can be read on multiple levels. I think ultimately, I don’t care much for the characters. I have seen the movie (many years ago), and I liked it, so I can’t explain why the book is just not appealing to me. I find it is not difficult to put down, and I keep looking at it, thinking I should pick it up. At this point, I’ve maxed out my library renewals, and I just don’t have a desire to try to finish it. I feel like I’m giving the book the old, “It’s not you, it’s me,” speech. But I really feel like it is me. People love this book. I did make a soap inspired by Mr. Crosetti’s cotton candy. It was pink and cotton-candy scented. However, as the soap cured, it turned a deeper shade closer to purple. My feeling is it now looks like appropriately dark and twisted cotton candy, and Mr. Dark would approve. I will probably just gift it to the kids in my family for Christmas.

I enjoyed the challenge I set for myself of thinking of an appropriate soap inspired by the books I read for this challenge. I am not sure I’d want to do it for every challenge or every book, but it was fun, and just like the books, I was really pleased with how the Vanilla Sugar Cane Soap came out from the very start, and as it cures, it is shaping up into a very nice soap, just like the book. On the other hand, I was initially pleased with the Cotton Candy Soap, and over time, I found my enthusiasm cooled as the soap changed a funny color, which mirrors my feelings for the book on which I based it.

This year is shaping up to be a bad reading year for me all the way around. I am already feeling a pull to re-read [amazon asin=0143105434&text=Wuthering Heights]. I recognize the signs: I start Googling things related to the book and looking for film versions on Netflix. And I don’t have time. I have other books I’ve committed to read. That book is a damned siren.

So how did you do with the challenge this year? How’s your reading year shaping up as we slide into the final two months?

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Review: The Annotated Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë, ed. Janet Gezari


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Bless Me, Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya

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Bless Me, UltimaThe tenth grade curriculum where I now teach includes Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima. I had never read the book before, and I managed to stay right with the students as we read. There is something to be said for reading alongside students instead of in advance. On this particular occasion, I did it out of necessity rather than design. I usually try to read in advance, but constraints on my time have made that hard. I enjoyed the novel very much, and it was a nice segue from The Catcher in the Rye, which we just studied, to Macbeth, which we will study next. For this particular novel, it was nice to experience the unfolding of the story right alongside the students.

Bless Me, Ultima is a semi-autobiographical novel (something Anaya admits), so my students and I used a biographical lens to study the novel. Like Anaya, Antonio was a young boy living in New Mexico. He feels a great deal of conflict over his path in life. Should he become a vaquero and wander the llano like his father’s family, the Márez? Or should he become a farmer, like his mother’s brothers, the Lunas? His mother wishes for him to become a priest of the Lunas. Or does his path lay on a completely different road? At his mother’s insistence, the family takes in the elderly curandera Ultima, who was present at the birth of Antonio and his siblings. She is a wise healer, and she shows Antonio her healing ways. The two grow close, and he helps her as she is persuaded to use her healing arts to cure victims of witchcraft. Antonio discovers much about the mysteries of life, God, and magic over the course of the two years Ultima lives with his family.

One of my favorite parts of much literature in this genre, and in particular, Chicano and other Latino literature, is the magical realism. I feel that the magical realism in Latino literature is almost always more seamlessly executed and accepted by the characters (and, as a result, the reader) than it is in other types of literature. As I read this novel, it wasn’t hard to accept the notion that of course witchcraft was real, and there were those who used their powers for good, and others who used their powers for evil. And of course, there was a magical Golden Carp who might be part of Antonio’s religious destiny. And of course, small children were religious philosophers who pushed Antonio’s thinking through their clear conclusions about God and the Golden Carp.

Anaya has no trouble bringing his New Mexican llano to life. I grew up in Colorado, and I have been to New Mexico many times. The flat llano was easy for me to picture even without Anaya’s help, but he brings the setting to life through his descriptions of the flat land, the scrubby cacti and yucca plants, the big sky, and the river. There are elements of a traditional shoot-em-up Western, too, as the Márez vaqueros ride in and the evil Tenorio chases people in his quest for vengeance. But what ties all of it together is Ultima and Antonio’s respect for the beauty and utility of the land.

This novel was chosen as a Big Read selection, and here is a video that might interest you. I love Anaya’s bolo tie and tennis shoes. Cute!

Rating: ★★★★★

Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book from my school as part of my curriculum materials.

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The Cutting Season, Attica Locke

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The Cutting SeasonAttica Locke’s novel The Cutting Season is the story of Caren Gray, who manages the plantation Belle Vie on the shores of the Mississippi River, south of Baton Rouge, for its current owners, the Clancey family. Caren’s family and Clanceys have been entwined since the Civil War, when Caren’s ancestor Jason worked on the grounds of the plantation, cutting sugar cane, as the Clanceys’ ancestor William Tynan acted as overseer of the property. When the plantation’s owners left the plantation, it was seized by the federal government. William Tynan acquired the plantation in 1872. Jason went missing, and his ultimate fate remains a mystery. At the opening of the novel, Caren and the rest of the Belle Vie staff are preparing for another busy day at the plantation when Caren discovers the body of a young woman on the plantation grounds, near the old slave cabins. The woman turns out to be Inés Avalo, an undocumented field worker for Groveland Corporation, a large agriculture corporation that owns the fields of sugar cane that border the plantation. Caren finds herself inextricably involved in the resulting investigation, and the ghosts of the plantation’s past come back to haunt the present.

This novel is an interesting exploration of several issues: the legacy of slavery and injustice, the consequences of the growth of big agriculture, the tension between preserving history versus the economical needs of society. Caren Gray is a likable heroine, and the story moves at a good pace. The descriptions are vivid, and the atmosphere pure Southern gothic (in the best way). While the mystery alone was good, and I really wanted to keep turning pages to find out what would happen and whodunnit, I admit my favorite part of the novel was the historical aspect. I really wished that Caren had been more curious about her family history and the history of the plantation. She didn’t seem interested until looking into the past might help her understand present events. I don’t think I could have lived in a place like Belle Vie, particularly knowing my family had also lived there for generations, without being more curious. I’m not sure I found all of Caren’s connections plausible—her daughter’s father works in the Obama administration—but it did make an interesting statement about the arc of race relations in our country since the Civil War. Hurricane Katrina’s impact on the state of Louisiana also makes a small but important impression on the events in the novel.

I was interested to discover that Locke was inspired to create Belle Vie after attending an interracial wedding at Oak Alley Plantation in Vacherie, Louisiana. The idea of such a marriage in that location provoked an emotional conflict in the author, who told NPR, “I felt this tear inside—there’s no way to not feel the beauty of it because it is so stunning. But it also kind of made my stomach turn, because of what it represented.”

Rating: ★★★★☆

Full disclosure: The publisher provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Because of the general mystery and gothic elements, I’m counting this book toward the R.I.P. Challenge (even though it wasn’t on my original list of challenge books) and as the modern fiction selection for the Mixing it Up Challenge. I said I would make soap inspired by each book I read for the R.I.P. Challenge, so look for my Vanilla Sugar soap (including pics) inspired by the sugar cane fields around Belle Vie some time this weekend. It won’t be ready for at least four weeks after it’s made. Biography below courtesy of TLC Book Tours.

About Attica Locke

Black Water Rising, Attica Locke’s first novel, was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK in 2010. It was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a Strand Magazine Critics Award. Black Water Rising was also a finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award.

Attica Locke has spent many years working as a screenwriter, penning movie and television scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, HBO, and Dreamworks.  She was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

A native of Houston, Texas, Attica now lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter. She is a member of the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Most recently, she wrote the introduction for the UK publication of Ernest Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying. Her second book, The Cutting Season, was published by HarperCollins / and Dennis Lehane in September 2012.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Attica’s Tour Stops

Tuesday, September 18th: A Bookworm’s World

Wednesday, September 19th: Books and Movies

Thursday, September 20th: A Patchwork of Books

Monday, September 24th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Tuesday, September 25th: Helen’s Book Blog

Wednesday, September 26th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, September 27th: Dwell in Possibility

Tuesday, October 2nd: Drey’s Library

Wednesday, October 10th: The Blog of Lit Wits

Thursday, October 11th: Book Him Danno!

Friday, October 12th: The House of Crime and Mystery

Thursday, October 25th: Much Madness is Divinest Sense

TBD: Stephanie’s Written Word

TBD: In the Next Room

TBD: Psychotic State

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Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

Top Ten Fictional Couples

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Top Ten Tuesday adapted from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ceasedesist/4812981497/

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is a REWIND topic, so in order to get into the spirit of the season, I elected to write about the Top Ten Fictional Couples, which was a topic originally posted September 28, 2010.

1. Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy. Naturally. I love the fact that they don’t fall in love at first sight and have to grow to love one another. And their witty barbs! I just love them as a couple.

2. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. They are so horrible. They deserve each other, and their longing to be together (and Heathcliff’s overly developed sense of vengeance) threatens everyone they know.

3. Romeo and Juliet. OK, despite what I said about liking that Lizzie and Darcy grow to love each other, I admit I’m a sucker for this teenage infatuation. Of course, it’s great fun to teach, also.

4. Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester. I like how he has to become worthy of her and that she learns she doesn’t have to settle.

5. Lt. Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley. Ohmygosh I cried at the end of that book.

6. Tristan and Isolde. OK, it was a love potion, but man, that almost makes it worse. They didn’t have any choice but to be desperately in love!

7. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar. What a sad love story. Talk about star-crossed lovers. Great short story, if you haven’t read it, but I think the movie is better because the characters are more fully developed.

8. Severus Snape and Lily Evans. OK, technically not a couple because it was one-sided, but man, what devotion. Always.

9. Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara. They kind of deserved each other. I think they eventually found their way back to each other, but perhaps not in the way Alexandra Ripley imagined.

10. Meggie Cleary and Father Ralph de Briccasart. Oh, in another world, they could have been together. Love them!

Who are your favorite literary couples?

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

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The Perks of Being a WallflowerThe book club at my school, which I advise, elected to read Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower for its first book. We plan to go see the movie after we finish the book. I had wanted to read the book for a long time.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is an epistolary novel about high school freshman Charlie’s adjustment to high school, including finding friends, his first crush, and dealing with some difficult issues. Early in the book, Charlie explains he is writing these letters to an anonymous reader because he heard the reader is a good person. Charlie has recently lost a good friend to suicide and is worried about high school, especially finding friends. At one of the first football games, he befriends Patrick, a boy in his shop class, and Patrick’s stepsister Sam, both of whom are seniors. As he grows closer to the two and becomes part of their circle, he learns how to stop standing on the fringes of life and “participate.”

One of the most interesting aspects of the book to me was that it was set in 1991-1992, which was my sophomore year of college, and was particularly memorable. It was my favorite year of college, and consequently, one of my favorite years of life. I was 20 for most of that school year. What a great age to be. And over half my life ago, now. 😥  I spent a lot of time that year listening to some of the new music coming out of Seattle, as well as some older (but new to me) favorites from the Pretenders, the Replacements, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, REM, and the Rolling Stones. One of my favorite parts of this book was the mixtape Charlie gave Patrick. I remember spending hours making mixtapes for my friends. You can make Spotify playlists in a matter of minutes. It’s not the same.

The book deals honestly with issues such as homosexuality, casual sex, drug use, suicide, abortion, and sexual abuse. In fact, if I have one criticism for the book, it’s that the entire kitchen sink of major teen issues was thrown at Charlie, and I’m not sure it’s common for most teens to experience every bad thing that can happen. However, I also admit I was sheltered. But still.

I can see why this book would appeal to teens, and I really enjoyed it myself. I found Charlie to be a likable character, though the book reminded me a great deal of The Catcher in the Rye. Charlie is not quite as friendless or annoying as Holden (though I admit I feel more empathy for Holden than annoyance with him). I have to admit I had trouble seeing him as a wallflower. It seemed to me as if he were a keen observer, but he participated plenty, in my opinion. Much more than I did as a teen—which could be why I had trouble seeing him on the sidelines of life.

I am looking forward to seeing the movie with the book club. I hope it’s good!

Rating: ★★★★☆

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Fall Foliage trip to New Hampshire 2011

Sunday Salon: Book Club

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Fall Foliage trip to New Hampshire 2011

I get to live in a place that looks like this in the fall. How lucky am I? I didn’t take this picture, and it’s actually New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts. The leaves have just begun to turn here. Right now there is a very soft rain falling outside. It’s perfect weather for curling up with a cup of tea and a book.

I recently became the new advisor of the Book Club at my school, and as you might expect, it’s full of smart girls. I wish we could have talked more boys into joining. If they were smart, they’d have joined if for no other reason than that they can meet girls. For their first book, the girls picked Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The plan is to read half the book by our next meeting on Thursday, and then finish the other half for the following week. Then we are going to go see the movie. I am more excited than I can say about the Book Club. For one thing, it’s a proper book club. The girls are serious. They love books. It makes me so happy. If you have ever been an English teacher and tried to get students to love books, then you understand how I feel. If you feel like the world would be a better place if only more people were readers, then you also understand how I feel.

I have also become something of a go-to person for YA in the library, and in the next few weeks, I plan to request a big stack of books for the library. I believe that the school library should be driven by student interest as much as by curriculum. Certainly teachers should request books, but it is my hope that students will also see the library as a place to check out the books they want to read. I will be helping one of our librarians out with a display for Teen Read Week. I am so excited about this role because I’m excited to influence and support our students’ reading. I have been fortunate to hear from parents and former students about my role in their development as a reader, and nothing gives me more pleasure than fostering a love of lifelong reading in a student.

I am about 60 pages into Perks, and so far, what a great book! Charlie, the protagonist, makes a mixtape for his friend Patrick, whom he has drawn as a Secret Santa partner for Christmas. I recreated the playlist minus the Beatles songs, which aren’t in Spotify (I substituted with some cover versions). I shared it with the Book Club girls, so I thought I’d share it with Perks fans here. Take a listen.

Enjoy this glorious fall Sunday!

The Sunday Salon

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Musing Mondays

Musing Mondays: Non-Bookish Hobbies

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Musing MondaysThis week’s Musing Mondays question is “Do you have any hobbies outside of reading? Or do you collect anything?”

As a matter of fact, I have a really fun, somewhat new hobby that I have mentioned a couple of times on this blog. I make cold process soap. Cold process is another name for making soap from scratch, which means I mix lye and water with oils and fats to produce soap. Melt and pour is a process by which you take soap that has already been made, such as a glycerin base or a bar of commercial or handmade soap, and melt it down, then forming it into shapes or bars. I have not tried that particular process, which is considered a little easier, but also gives you a little more room for creativity with shapes and colors (that’s just my observation).

I blog about my soap-making adventures at Suds Life. I have also recently opened a store on Etsy and a Facebook fan page (feel free to “like” it!). I have actually sold one bar of soap and would love to sell some more, so check it out! I am adding new soap all the time.

I love making soap. It is a very zen sort of activity. I have complete control over all the ingredients that go into my soap. It is not unlike cooking that way. I can also try new things and experiment. Interestingly, I find I like to experiment even more with soap recipes than I do with food recipes! My favorite soap so far is a pumpkin pie soap I made not too long ago. I love the way it turned out. Although I have to say that the most recent soap batch I made, Cinnamon Apple Cider, turned out extraordinarily well. Here is a photo:

Cinnamon Apple Cider

It looks and smells just like applesauce. I think it might be a major contender for a new favorite.

I enjoy everything about this hobby, and I look forward to many happy years of soaping.

Aside from making soap, I also write and love to participate in NaNoWriMo every year. I also like cross stitching, though I don’t do it often. I don’t watch a ton of TV, but I like Downton Abbey, Sherlock Holmes (BBC with Benedict Cumberbatch), Doctor Who, and The Big Bang Theory.

It strikes me that readers tend to be hobbyists fairly often; specifically, readers tend to be “crafty” types. I know a lot of readers who knit, make books, paint, crochet, sew, or cook. I wonder why that is. Any thoughts?

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The Orchardist, Amanda Coplin

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The Orchardist: A NovelYou belong to the earth, and the earth is hard.

I read Amanda Coplin‘s [amazon asin=006218850X&text=The Orchardist] as part of its TLC Book Tour.

Set at the turn of the twentieth century in Washington State, when the west was still a bit untamed, forbidding, and isolated from the rest of the country, The Orchardist is a novel about human connections and the interwoven nature of humanity. The orchardist of the title is William Talmadge, who lost his sister when she mysteriously disappeared and whose disappearance still haunts him. Alone in his orchards, Talmadge is a solitary man with few companions until one day two bedraggled and pregnant teenage girls show up in his orchard. Talmadge leaves food for the girls and tries to care for them. They are mistrustful of him and keep their distance. Talmadge discovers someone is looking for the girls, and after he makes a visit to the man’s house and discovers what might have prompted the girls to flee, he resolves to protect them in whatever way he can, but he quickly discovers through yet a new tragedy, that it is not in his power to protect, and he has to reconcile his feelings about this fresh new tragedy with the tragedies of his past.

I have an interesting connection to this book in that my own ancestors were apple orchardists for several generations in the twentieth century. In fact, my father is the first generation of his family not to be an orchardist. My own family lived in the Yakima Valley, which is south of the area of Washington where Coplin’s novel is set. Coplin is a Washington native, and I found the setting she described familiar. I have never actually visited Washington State myself, but I have heard it described by my father and step-grandmother. My step-grandmother frequently mentioned canning ‘cots (apricots) in her letters, and my father described the ladders in apple orchards that workers climbed. Coplin’s descriptions are lush—they place the reader in the scene and reminded me a little bit of Louise Erdrich’s novel [amazon asin=0060515139&text=The Plague of Doves] in the connection of the characters to the land and the interwoven community connected through tragedy. Coplin doesn’t use quotation marks when characters speak, which strikes me as an interesting technique in that it takes the characters out of the story a little bit. I didn’t notice the technique books that read more like journals or memoirs, but in fiction, I have to admit I’m not much of a fan; lack of quotation marks is one reason I don’t enjoy reading Cormac McCarthy’s books. However, I should say that I didn’t actually find the technique irritating in Coplin’s book, and I usually do. The Orchardist is an intriguing read and reminded me in parts of [amazon asin=0142437808&text=Ethan Frome], but I think that is because Talmadge reminded me of Ethan Frome. The two books are not that similar in plot or structure otherwise. Book clubs might find this selection an interesting novel to discuss.

TLC Book Tour for The Orchardist:

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R.I.P. Challenge VII

R.I.P. Challenge VII: It’s That Time of Year Again

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R.I.P. Challenge VIIOoooh! Time for my most favorite reading challenge, the R.I.P. Reading Challenge. No other reading challenge so perfectly matches the time of year to reading selections, in my opinion. I have not been reading as much as I usually do this year. A big move, a new job. Lots of reasons. I really want to participate in this challenge, but I am not going to commit myself to a set number of books, especially because I will be taking a Harvard course pretty soon, and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have. But technically, I’m shooting for Peril the First.

I am thinking about these choices:

I also really want to read [amazon asin=0380977273&text=Something Wicked This Way Comes] by Ray Bradbury, which strikes me as both the quintessential fall book and most perfect book for this challenge ever. I’ve already read both of the group reads for the challenge, and while I really wouldn’t mind reading [amazon asin=0060530944&text=The Graveyard Book] book again, I want to read books I haven’t read yet this time. Both of the group reads are excellent and perfect for this challenge.

To make it more interesting, I’m going to create a soap recipe for each book that reminds me of some aspect or other of the book, and if the recipes turn out well, I’ll give away a bar of each, here on this blog. So stay tuned, and encourage me to read, because otherwise no soap.

I will try to read these five books, but I’m not sure if I will get to all of them. Here’s hoping! I need to get cracking, but I need to read [amazon asin=006218850X&text=The Orchardist] first as I have a deadline very soon. More on that book later. Wish me luck!

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Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi


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