Summer Reading 2013

The Grass is Singing, by Doris Lessing

First Line:  Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front veranda of their homestead yesterday.

"Because he had never yet earned his own living, he thought entirely in abstractions.  For instance, he had the conventionally "progressive" ideas about the color bar, the superficial progressiveness of the idealist that seldom survives a conflict with self-interest."

The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

First line:  The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my bachelor-apartments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly-man of rather shabby appearance met me in an obscure part of the street.

Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi

First line:  Kweku dies barefoot on a Sunday before sunrise, his slippers by the doorway to the bedroom like dogs.

The Painted Veil by Somerset Maugham

First line:  She gave a startled cry.

Narrative of Sojouner Truth

First line:  The subject of this biography, Sojourner Truth, as she now calls herself, but whose name originally was Isabella, was the daughter of James and Betsey, slaves of one Col. Ardinburgh, Jurle, Ulster County, N.Y.

The Herbfarm Cookbook by Jerry Traunfeld

First line:  If you're learning to cook with fresh herbs, you'll do well by starting with soups, for in a soup everything is told in a single spoonful.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

First line:  Then there was the bad weather.

Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington

First line: The patient, an old-fashioned man, thought the nurse made a mistake in keeping both of the windows open, and her sprightly disregard of his protests added something to his hatred of her.

Psychopath Test

Anyone read the Psychopath Test by the same author who wrote Men who Stare at Goats? It's a really intersting book that meanders through the land of crazy. It starts a little slow, and the writing style of the author is more like a journal than a typical non-fiction book. However, its a good read!

PS - I'm not if anyone is still following this blog. I'm posting this in part to see if anyone is interested in continuing this blog.

Library Sells Off Good Stock Real Cheap

It's a little hard to see, but those are 25 cents stickers on three promising books. If only I could read as fast as I buy. Check out these first sentences:

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING by Milan Kundera
In February 1948, the communist leader Klement Gottwald stepped out on the balcony of a Baroque palace in Prague to harangue hundereds of thousands of citizens massed in Old Town Square.

THE NEW MEANING OF TREASON by Rebecca West
The idea of a traitor first became real to the British of our time when they heard the voice of William Joyce on the radio during the war.

UTTERLY MONKEY by Nick Laird
Moving is easy.

Okay, maybe they're not that gripping, but I have high hopes for these.

Some Summer Reading

First sentences:

THE NAME OF THE WORLD by Denis Johnson
Since my early teens I've associated everything to do with college, "the academic life," with certain images born towards me, I suppose, from the TV screen, in particular from the films of the 1930's they used to broadcast relentlessly when I was a boy, and especially from a single scene: Fresh-faced young people come in from autumn night to stand around the fireplace in the home of a beloved professor.

This was a Pen/Faulkner Award finalist, but I picked it up because I noticed that the author lives in Bonner's Ferry, ID. I might have liked this story of a middle aged man grieving the loss of his wife and daughter more at a different time in my life. Found myself skimming.

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING by Milan Kundera
The idea of eternal return is a mysterious one, and Nietzsche has often perplexed other philosophers with it: to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it, and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum!
Funny, but reading that first sentence I am suprised how much I loved, loved, LOVED this book.

A HOUSE FOR MR. BISWAS by V.S. Naipaul

Ok, sorry, but I returned this to the library before I wrote down the 1st sentence. I think it was a pretty good one, too. This is yet another book I didn't finish, but would like to sometime. I actually was enjoying it but have too many other things I want to read for upcoming discussions.

THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE by Muriel Spark
The boys, as they talked to the girls from Marcia Blaine School, stood on the far side of their bicycles holding the handlebars, which established a protective fence of bicycle between the sexes, and the impression that at any moment the boys were likely to be away.

I've got to try some more Muriel Spark. This is good writing. I have the distinct memory of lying on my bedroom floor in Mich reading this as a teenager and being very impressed. I don't reread too many books, but I've forgotten most of the details and only remember the feeling. And it's a July discussion choice.

DROWN by Junot Diaz
We were on our way to the colmado for an errand, a beer for my tio, when Rafa stood still and tilted his head, as if listening to a message I couldn't hear, something beamed in from afar.

That's the first sentence from the first of 10 short storis, Ysrael. They are all good.

THE BOY NEXT DOOR by Irene Sabatini
Two days after I turned fourteen the son of our neighbor set his stepmother alight.

This was a May discussion book, but I'm finally getting around to it. I've been doing far too much suduko, and not enough reading lately. So far, I like it. It's set in Zimbabwe soon after independence was gained.

Go Down, Moses

I'm only a few stories into Go Down, Moses but I'm enjoying it. There's a bit of the Brer Rabbit feel to it. Something about this Faukner that I really like.

Book Quote

From Google's Quote of the Day:

Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content.
- Paul Valery

Interesting Cover Choices

I confess I didn't read this book. It just happened to make me laugh out loud in a coffee shop while perusing one person's selection of
Bookcovers that are just plain wrong.